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Technical Efficiency for Tea Smallholder Farmers under UTZ Certification System in Sri Lanka: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

Authors

  • Hunuwala Malawarage Suranjan Priyanath (show author details)

    Hunuwala Malawarage Suranjan Priyanath

    Professor, Department of Economics and Statistics, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka

    Corresponding author

  • S.P. Premaratne (show author details)

    S.P. Premaratne

    Department of Economics, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka., Sri Lanka

  • Amina Yoosuf (show author details)

    Amina Yoosuf

    Nucleus Foundation, Kandy., Sri Lanka

  • D. Maurice (show author details)

    D. Maurice

    Nucleus Foundation, Kandy., Sri Lanka

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Priyanath, H. M. S., Premaratne, S., Yoosuf, A., & Maurice, D. (2018). Technical Efficiency for Tea Smallholder Farmers under UTZ Certification System in Sri Lanka: A Stochastic Frontier Approach. SEISENSE Journal of Management, 1(2), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1218820

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Abstract

The study aimed to identify the determinants of the technical efficiency of Smallholder Tea Farmers (STFs) under UTZ certification system in Sri Lanka by employing stochastic production frontier using a sample survey of 75 STFs supported by the UTZ programme conducted between January and March in 2016. The results showed that a small number of STFs (11.8 percent) were over 90 percent efficient and the level of efficiency was found to be negatively related to coefficients of UTZ certified STFs and positively related to number of years with the same plants. The results further showed the labor and fertilizer were the significant factors that determine the tea production of STFs.

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Article history

  1. ReceivedApril 8, 2018
  2. AcceptedApril 13, 2018
  3. Published April 17, 2018

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