Farmers’ Willingness to Cultivate Traditional Rice in Sri Lanka: A Case Study in Anuradhapura District

Abstract

Increasing health threats is a common problem among both rice growers and consumers in many parts of Sri Lanka and in the Asian region in general. Increasing trends in growing and consuming traditional rice could be observed in searching solutions for these problems. This study explored objectively the factors affecting willingness to grow tradi tional rice and its varietal selection in Anuradhapura district of Sri Lanka. 100 traditional and 100 non-traditional rice growers were selected using stratified sampling method for the field survey and data were analyzed descriptively, using logistic regression and factor analysis. Results revealed that 67% of the male farmers were willing to cultivate traditional rice over improved varieties and 65.6% traditional rice cultivation was observed among families with non-communicable diseases. Awareness of medicinal and nutritional values of traditional rice, land extent, farm gate price, age and education level of farm - ers, farming experience and farming system significantly affects (P ≤ 0.05) the willingness to cultivate traditional rice while factors related to varietal attributes, personal, market and production, respectively affects selection of traditional rice variety. Results conclude that farmers are willing to cultivate traditional rice in Anuradhapura district of Sri Lanka and selection of traditional rice varieties is most affected by varietal attributes which are adoptable to existing environmental conditions and personal factors like presence of non- communicable diseases, age of the farmers, education level and experience for farming .