Urban Agriculture has an incredible ability to address various burning issues in the urban community such as poverty, malnutrition, unhygienic food stuff and food insecurity which have arisen due to the continuous increase in global urban population. Women can play a key role in urban agriculture due to their role in food management at household level. Nevertheless, at present women participation in urban agriculture is significantly unsatisfactory. In this research, primary data were collected from a sample of 82 respondents in the capital of Sri Lanka, Sri Jayawardanepura Kotte. The results of the study confirm a significant difference in the perceptions on urban agriculture among urban women farmers and urban women non-farmers. The most influential socioeconomic factors affecting the women participation in urban agriculture are; age, education level, number of members in the family and total cultivable area. The time constraints for farming, poor quality of planting inputs and lack of knowledge are the mainly identified constraints that hinder women's contribution in urban agriculture. The results of the study further reveal that the best strategy practiced by the urban women farmers to uplifting the family economy is reinvesting the income or savings of household expenditure due to urban agriculture activities on same agricultural activities. Further, the fitted model on can be used to determine the level of women participation in urban agriculture.

Today commercialization of agriculture is an inevitable reality throughout the whole world.  There are a number of factors affecting the commercialization process in agriculture. Some of them could be named as rapid growth of economies in the both developing and developed countries, introducing of new technologies, market expansion, market liberalization, urbanization, rapid increase of demand for food, decreasing of farming population, liberalized and open economic policies, bilateral and multilateral economic agreements, developed infrastructure facilities in farming areas and government agricultural policies. However, commercialization in agriculture is not a new phenomenon and it is not a surprise to the farming community. Since the nineteen fifties, farmers in most of the countries have moved towards commercial agriculture. Their major objective was surplus production aiming market prospects. Agricultural extension plays a major role in agricultural production.  Role of agricultural extension in a commercialized agricultural system is different from such service in subsistence farming system. In the commercialized agriculture the extension service will mainly concentrate on the resourceful big farmers, with favorable environmental conditions and higher socio-economic status. Under the commercialized agriculture the number of farmers is to be reduced and the size of the farm land should be increased. This is a generally accepted concept in commercial agriculture. Do we have to accept this concept under each and every situation? We think the answer is "no". By using improved technologies farmers can move towards commercial agriculture without considering the size of land. Under protected agriculture, farmers follow concepts of the commercial agriculture. Commercial livestock farming does not rely on the farm size except diary farming. However, the role of agricultural extension in the commercialized agricultural system is mainly dependent on the type and way of commercialization in a given society. We have to expect that agricultural extension services are supposed to fulfill many aims, from reducing rural poverty and improved livelihoods for rural households to increasing the overall production and contributing to foreign exchange earnings from exports. But the level and percentage of this contribution may vary from one situation to another. DOI: 10.4038/suslj.v6i1.1686 Sabaragamuwa University Journal, vol 6, no. 1, pp 13-22

Commercialized agriculture shows better avenues in diversifying the rural livelihoods. Floriculture industry is an avenue to initiate successful small scale enterprises in a conducive environment. This paper explores the aspects in small scale floriculture industry to adapt strategies in rural development through indexing the success of floriculture small enterprises under eight dimensions. Both interviewer administrated questionnaire and in-depth interviews with key respondents were adapted in data collection. Findings indicate that the average entrepreneurial success index of the sample is 0.57, meaning the average success level and 38% were very successful. Diversification (0.78), profitability (0.68), social recognition (0.61) are the dimensions that have the highest mean values and quality of supply or service (0.56), customer satisfaction (0.45) and employee satisfaction (0.27) had lower mean values. Middle age (34%) and women (64%) entrepreneurs' engagement in the industry was high. Time spent on the enterprise and labour usage depends on whether the business is their primary or secondary income activity. Floriculture small scale enterprises have been identified as a good income avenue for middle aged women in rural areas. However, rural development strategies need to address the requirement of how to develop the management skills of rural entrepreneurs as well for the sustainability of their enterprises.

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