The study illustrates potential alternatives for the banned polythene bags and lunch sheets (PBLS) imposed in 2017 by the Sri Lankan government and explores the nature of PBLS in the market in Sri Lanka. Results reveal that the government, at present, has no laboratory facilities to test degradability of PBLS. Further, there are very few alternatives for the banned PBLS while the high price acts as the main limitation for its popularity.

This study assesses the green chili markets in Sri Lanka from 2012 to 2016 by examining the degree of market integration in the country. The analysis was carried out in the first differenced form, which conformed to the Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests of stationary. The pairwise comparison between Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre (DDEC) and 25 other regional markets in Sri Lanka was carried out. All market pairs co-integrated with the price at DDEC in the long run according to the results of Johansen Co-integration test. Therefore, the DDEC has clearly played an important role in price discovery in the long run. Error correction terms indicated that the adjustment process from shortterm disequilibrium in prices to long run price equilibrium is slow providing evidence of weak short run co-integration in green chili markets in Sri Lanka. Results revealed only six regional markets out of 25 had serial correlation in the short run. Negative coefficients of prices in the short term indicated that some unknown factors are playing predominant role in spatial price transmission such as sluggishness in market convergence and inappropriate involvement of middleman in the market chain. Farm gate to the collecting centre and collecting centre to the regional markets were identified as the main two points in the market channel where high price influence has occurred. A systematic government inspection and a strong market information system could prevent such short term price disequilibrium in the regional chili markets in Sri Lanka to a greater extent.

Agro-biodiversity acts as a key environment resource that enhances the sustainability in any given ecosystem. Much of the agro-biodiversity remaining in situ today is found on the semi-subsistence farms, small scale farms or home gardens. Labeled "home gardens" as a reflection of their institutional identity during the collectivization period, they are micro-agro ecosystems that provide important environmental functions and food security. This study applies the choice experiment method to estimate the private benefits farmers derive from four components of agro-biodiversity in the home gardens; richness of crop varieties and fruit trees, crop landraces, integrated crop and livestock production and soil microorganism diversity. Primary data collected from a sample of 189 households in the Kurunegala was used in this study. A conditional logit model was used to elicit willingness to accept by home garden owners for preserving above mentioned facets of agro-biodiversity. Results highlighted that the households' highest willingness to accept attribute was livestock integration. In addition other attributes such as organic production, landraces, pollination, fauna and flora diversity were significant components of a home garden. Findings demonstrate variation in the private values of home gardens and their attributes across households contributing to understand the potential role of home gardens in the area. This study has implications for sustaining agro-biodiversity in home gardens and in the country.

This paper applied a stochastic frontier model to measure total factor productivity growth, technical efficiency change, and technical change in tea production in the estate sector in Sri Lanka. Monthly data from 35 tea estates relating to the period 2005 to 2019 were used. Two functional forms with two distributional assumptions were tested. A Translog production frontier with the inefficiency term distributed as a truncated normal distribution was found to be the best fit for data. Results revealed that on average estate sector tea production operates 48% below the potential output indicating possibilities of increasing performance without any significant changes in inputs. Further, the overall rate of technical progress was estimated at 0.002 percent per year. The overall rate of technical efficiency change declined by 0.013 percent per year. The combined effect of slow technical progress, dominated by the fall in technical efficiency resulted in the decline in the total factor productivity in the corporate tea sector at a rate of 0.002 percent per year. This net effect of declining Total Factor Productivity raises concerns about the sustainability of the tea sector in Sri Lanka in the long run. Policies to shift up the production frontier and improvements in managerial practices to combat declining efficiency levels are recommended.

Among various inputs, seeds are inevitably critical for successful crop production, farm productivity, and profitability. Potato requires inputs intensively for its cultivation in comparison with other field crops. Only the seed accounts for more than 50% of the total cultivation cost due to the scarcity of locally produced quality seed potatoes at a reasonable price. One of the sustainable solutions to resolve this issue is to form viable Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in order to strengthen the production of quality seed potato in Sri Lanka. In light of this, the central objective of this study is to determine the prospects in initiating PPPs to improve the production of quality seed potato in Sri Lanka. Study adopts a normative approach. Two hundred and seventy six potato farmers were selected using multi-stage random sampling covering four DS Division in Badulla and Nuwara Eliya districts. Pre-tested structured questionnaire and focus groups were deployed to gather data. Further, key informant interviews with 35 entities of both public and private entities were conducted. ANOVA was carried out to assess the cost efficiency of different seed types. Study identified that, provision of quality inputs and dissemination of technical know-how are the two main aspects expected from the PPPs. Mini tuber and Generation Zero (G0) production should be limited only to public entity while, PPP should form for production of G1 and further continuation. Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) approach is an option for the government to outsource public projects to the private sector. This enhances the efficient resource allocation between both parties. Further, farmers could reduce total cost of production by 10% using locally produced pre-basic seeds. However, strategies should be aligned with the best possible manner in order to meet the requirement of many stakeholders.