Determinants of Profitability of Cashew Farmers in Kurunegala District

Abstract

Cashew has the potential to deliver the sources of income and profits for farmers and make employment opportunities in Sri Lanka. This study was conducted to identify the factors affecting profitability of cashew growers in Maho divisional secretariat division in Kurunegala district. The simple random sampling technique was used to select 120 cashew growers from the above division. The primary data related to profits and socio – economic characteristics of the cashew growers were collected using a structured questionnaire. Basic features of the samples were analyzed using frequency statistics and to identify the association between three ranges of profits and socio – economic characteristics of the cashew growers, chi – square test was applied. The results of frequency represent that 69.3% of them are males and 30.7% of them are females while 18.7% of the cashew growers have other income sources and rest of the 81.3% of them do not have it. Across types of labor, 86.7% of the cashew growers used family labors and only 13.3% of them used hired labors. The results of chi – square test indicates that three ranges of profits such as, less than Rs 50000/=, between Rs 50000/= to Rs 100000/= and more than Rs10000/- have significantly associated with gender, availability of other income sources and types of labors. Multiple linear regression model was employed to investigate the impact of socio – economic characteristics on profits and its results highlight that gender, types of labor and size of land significantly and positively influencing the profits while, market price of cashew significantly and negatively affect the cashew profits in cashew cultivation. In addition to the statistical analysis, the researcher conducted a face - to - face interview with a selected group of cashew growers and its results found that, cashew growers were constrained by several limitations such as severe pest and disease attack, lack of marketing facilities, poor cashew processing technology and storage facilities.