Adoption of commercial fruit farming recommendations in Anuradhapura district with special reference to fruit village programme

The economic benefits are highly realized in commercial fruit cultivation and it is important to adopt technology recommendations to gain potential output. The aim of this study was to determine the factors that influence the adoption of recommended practices in fruit cultivation of fruit villages established under the National Food Production Programme (NFPP) in the year 2016. This study was conducted in Anuradhapura district covering 16 fruit villages. The study used multi stage random sampling method to select 97 beneficiaries to carry out cross sectional data survey. The data analysis was carried out through descriptive statistics and econometric model of ordered logistic regression. The study constructed the Farming Practices Intensity (FPI) index considering the application of recommendations in the field. According to the FPI index, the majority of the farmers (57.7%) were categorized into the medium level adopters’ category whereas the low and high adopters’ are representing 25.7% and 16.6% of the total sample, respectively. The model estimated that male farmers were more likely to be in higher adopters’ category compared to the female farmers. The farming experience, perception of farmers on the fruit village program and the contacts with extension officers were positively correlated with technology adoption and more influential on farmers to be practiced technological recommendations in commercial fruit cultivation. Therefore, the policy makers and the research and technology dissemination experts are needed to consider the disparity-inducing factors in their planning process to realize the expected outcome from the fruit village programme.