YesPurpose\ud – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the entrepreneurial attitudes of upcountry vegetable farmers in Sri Lanka with respect to the characteristics of innovation, opportunity seeking and risk taking and considers their implications for rural development efforts.\ud \ud Design/methodology/approach\ud – The study was carried out in the hilly areas of the Badulla district in the Uva Province of Sri Lanka. Primary data were collected through a survey using a researcher-administered questionnaire as the data collection instrument and the individual farmer as the unit of analysis.\ud \ud Findings\ud – Most vegetable farmers in the upcountry areas were found to be attitudinally entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial attitudes were determined more by educational background and farming experience than age, gender, extent of farmland, type of farming and ownership of farmland. Farming experience related positively with innovation, opportunity seeking and risk taking, but farmers’ educational background showed no significant association with innovation.\ud \ud Research limitations/implications\ud – It is suggested that farmer-owned companies with appropriate institutional arrangements could reduce transaction costs for buyers, and introduce accessible rural finance schemes to enhance provision of assets and technology. Such a rural setting would gain from initiatives on marketing alternatives and entrepreneurial skill development. Future research could benefit from analysis of the financial and social performance and entrepreneurial skills of vegetable farmers.\ud \ud Originality/value\ud – The entrepreneurial attitude of farmers is an under-researched area of study particularly in the Sri Lanka context. Rural development initiatives could target entrepreneurial farmers based on these criteria to achieve maximum production impact. However care needs to be taken to consider the potential distributive impact of such targeting on farmers regarded as non-entrepreneurial.This publication would not have been possible without the funding provided by the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) under its academic fellowship programme. Assistance provided by Ellie Fixter (ACU, London) and Max Wellingham (British Council, Manchester) is sincerely appreciated.The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo on 23 May 2018

Sri Lanka introduced farmer companies to link smallholders with high-value markets. This study examines how the institutional, group, and management characteristics of these farmer companies affect their performance. Theories about causal relationships are tested using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The results indicate that farmer companies perform better when shares are tradable between members, and patrons pay and receive market-related prices for their inputs and products. All directors should be nominated by shareholders and voting should be conducted by secret ballot. To strengthen accountability, the right to hire and fire executive managers should vest with the board of directors and should not be appropriated by government agencies that facilitate these companies. Although directors and managers should monitor shareholder views, they must take policy and strategic decisions themselves as failure to centralize decision-making results in severe influence problems. Farmer company performance is compromised by the absence of well-defined and regularly observed processes to develop and implement strategies, and by inadequate or inappropriate management skills. These management problems may diminish if government facilitators had a clear exit plan from the time the company is established as this would help to focus their attention on the critical task of empowering farmer shareholders to direct and administer their company.

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The decline of the coir fiber industry in Sri Lanka, which brings valuable foreign exchange, has been a subject of concern as Sri Lanka is a main supplier of coir fiber to the world market. The repercussions of this decline on the country are enormous. In this article we analyze this crisis situation to find the causative factors and to propose recommendations for the development and sustainability of the industry. The main factors contributing to the crisis are unfavorable trade policies, trade barriers, human resource problems, poor trade behavior, export barriers, poor product marketing strategy, the high cost of production, poor industry regulation, and threats from the global marketing environment. Recommendations for the development of the industry include policy changes, improved working conditions, trade strategies, product diversification, mechanization, quality assurance, market development, strengthening of market position, and regional cooperation. We present a comprehensive long-term strategy for the future development of the coir fiber industry of Sri Lanka. [EconLit citations: O530, Q130, Q170.] © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 20: 495-516, 2004.