The Future of Sri Lankan Agri-Business: What Needs to be Done?

Abstract

Under increasing domestic and global pressures, the survival of small agri-businesses in developing countries such as Sri Lanka is being challenged because of their poor strategic focus and weak coordination along the supply chain. The quality, efficiency, and versatility of production, processing, distribution, and marketing systems play a significant role in the competitiveness of agri-businesses. Improved competitiveness requires closer coordination along the supply chain so as to decrease transaction costs and create opportunities for differentiation. In Sri Lanka, the government has a greater role to play in developing an enabling environment for the chains to which small agri-businesses belong.

Keywords:

• agri-business
• consumption
• coordination
• Sri Lanka
• value chains

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank the Pathfinder Foundation, Sri Lanka for their financial support.

Notes

1. Classification adopted by the Department of Census Statistics, Sri Lanka.

2. Commonly used classification of enterprises based on employees is micro < five employees, small 5–29 employees, medium 30–149 employees, and large 150 and above.