Determinants for Contribution of Pineapple Growers for Export Volume in Gampaha District in Sri Lanka

R. A. D. S. Rupasinghe*¹, H. A. S. L. Jayasinghe¹, R. M. P. S. Rathnayake¹, T. A. P. Silva²

¹Faculty of Animal Science and Export Agriculture, Uva Wellassa University, Badulla, Sri Lanka,

²Kelani Valley Canneries Ltd, Hanwella, Sri Lanka.

Corresponding Author Email: dilanimail@gmail.com

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.12944/CARJ.4.1.07

Abstract:

Pineapple is the third largest agricultural product after tea and coconut, which has a demand in export market. Although the nature has blessed with an ideal climate for growing wide range of delicious fruits including pineapple, Sri Lanka is not in a position to meet the growing demand. Therefore, that is very important to study about the export performance of fresh pineapple in Sri Lankan context. The general objective of this study was to identify the determinants of contribution of pineapple growers for export volume in Gampaha district. A structured questionnaire based survey was carried out to collect the data from random sample of 130 pineapple growers in Dompe and Diulapitiya DS divisions in Gampaha district. The result of Tobit model revealed that the contribution of pineapple growers for exports of pineapple was significantly determined by the age of grower, experience of grower, pineapple cultivated land extent, amount supply for local market, domestic price and export price. In the study of specific objectives, there was an upward trend from 1990 to 2004 and trend was declined from 2004 to 2012 with some fluctuations. The reason was that the export of preserved pineapple has shown a significant improvement within last few years and in developing the forecasting model for future forecast and the generalized model for current situation analysis for fresh pineapple exports in Sri Lanka. Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR) was used to develop the forecast model and the generalized model was developed without considering the time factor. The result revealed that the export of fresh pineapple was significantly determined by the average exchange rate and the domestic price.

Keywords:

Export Performance; Fresh Pineapple; Gampaha District; Tobit Model; VAR; Model

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