[N(poster)] ポスターセッション

英語

[1O20] The Impact of Post-Harvest Training on Adoption and Production Behavior among Black Pepper Farmers in Sri Lanka

*Samanmalee E.A.G. Amarawansha¹, Daisaku Goto², Niraj Prakash Joshi¹, Duc Tran¹ (1. University of Hiroshima, 2. University of Ritsumeikan)

キーワード：

Food quality、High value crop、Information provision、Post harvest practices、Production behaviour

Ensuring food quality has become increasingly important as agricultural development shifts toward high-value crops and markets. Smallholder farmers, however, often face barriers in adopting post-harvest quality-enhancing practices due to limited access to reliable and practical information. While most prior research on information provision has emphasized reducing quantity losses in staple crops, evidence on quality enhancement in high-value crops such as black pepper remains limited. This study addresses this gap by evaluating the effectiveness of two information dissemination approaches, government training and farmer-to-farmer experience sharing. Specifically, we assess their impact on the adoption of post-harvest quality improvement practices, and subsequent changes in production behavior. A randomized controlled trial was implemented with 660 black pepper farmers in the Matale District of Sri Lanka. We found that government training significantly improves the adoption of critical quality improvement practices including threshing, fresh berry grading, dry berry grading, and blanching. Our study also reveals that, the government training leads to a shift in production from low-quality to high-quality. Conversely, Farmer-to-farmer experience sharing has limited impact on adopting quality improvement practices with no subsequent alterations in production behaviour. Our findings highlight the importance of structured expertise led training in adopting quality improvement practices while enhancing the quality.