Abstract:
A sound understanding of the demographic and farming characteristics of smallholder farmers and how they stimulate their crop diversification decisions would help policymakers make appropriate measures for encouraging crop diversification. The objectives of the study are to assess the degree of crop diversification and examine in what ways the demographic and farming characteristics of smallholder vegetable farmers impact their crop diversification at Kotagala area in the Nuwara – Eliya district of Sri Lanka. Cross-sectional data were obtained from 86 randomly selected farmers who were cultivating nine vegetable crops in the Kotagala division using the structured questionnaires during the period from October to November 2019. The degree of crop diversification among vegetable farmers indicated by the Crop Diversification Index, an index derived from the Herfindahl – Hirschman Index, was estimated to have a mean value of 0.36. It shows that there is a low degree of crop diversification and the practices in multiple crop cultivation among the farmers is very low. Results of the frequency analysis revealed that 60.5 percent of the farmers are diversifiers, while 39.5 percent of them are non - diversifiers. Further, the tobit regression model was used to examine how demographic and farming characteristics of smallholder farmers influence crop diversification and its results indicated that age squared and education negatively influenced on crop diversification at a 10 percent significance level. On the contrary, crop
diversification is positively influenced by the age and size of cultivated land at a 5 percent significance level. The findings of the study will assist the decision makers in developing the best possible policies to support crop diversity, which will motivate farmers to make better choices, boost production, and improve food security in the study area
