An Analysis of the Impact of Financial Literacy on Credit Utilisation Behaviour of the Farmers in Kamburupitiya DS division

Agriculture is the major livelihood of the rural populations in many developing countries, including Sri Lanka. In order to feed the increasing number of mouths, subsistence agriculture is moving towards commercialised agriculture in order to increase production. On that point, agricultural credit plays a vital role in obtaining the mesentery inputs like land, machinery, seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, and labour force. However, as a result of the mismanagement of loan utilisation by farmers due to poor financial literacy, they were not able to get the expected return on agricultural loans. Therefore, this investigation was carried out in the Kambutupitiya DS division in the Matara District to find out the impact of financial literacy on the credit utilisation behaviour of the farmers and to determine the factors affecting their credit utilisation behaviour and financial literacy. The population consisted of 125 borrowers from Govijana Bank, which belongs to the agrarian service department, and 60 farmers were selected using simple random sampling. Data were analysed descriptively and statistically using SPSS. The credit facility was fully utilised only by 25% of the respondents, partially utilised by 35%, and the remaining 40% mis-utilised the loan. The study revealed that socio-demographic characteristics such as age, educational level, income level, loan size, and purpose of the loan do not have any significant influence on the credit utilisation behaviour of the farmers. However, family size has a significant impact on credit utilisation behaviour (P=0.016). Only 17% of the respondents have sound financial literacy. The majority of farmers have a moderate level of financial literacy (65%) and 18% of farmers have a lower level of financial literacy. Educational level (P=0.001) and income level (P=0.012) have a significant influence on financial literacy and age has not significantly impacted the financial literacy level of farmers. In the Sri Lankan context, there are opportunities to do further research at the provincial and national levels. The research suggests that policies should be implemented to incorporate financial knowledge at all levels of the education system. Keywords: Agriculture, Agricultural Loan, Credit Utilisation, Financial Literacy, Govijana Ban

An Analysis of the Impact of COVID–19 Crisis on Farmers Credit Repayment Capacity in Kamburupitiya DS Division

The COVID-19 is a novel virus that has negatively impacted on the service, industrial and agricultural sectors in the whole world. In particular, poor farming families in the developing world are highly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Therefore, this study aims to identify the impact of the COVID -19 pandemic situation on the livelihood pattern of the farmers in the Kamburupitiya DS division in order to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on the attributes of loan repayment of farmers, explain the strategies followed by farmers and financial institutions to minimise the loan default rate and suggest means of promoting loan repayment during the COVID -19 pandemic period. Primary data were collected from 60 farmers who borrowed the project loan in the Kamburupitiya DS division using a simple random sampling technique. Secondary data were collected from Govi Jana Bank, Kamburupitiya. Semi-structured questionnaires were used for primary data collection. Descriptive statistical methods and a paired sample t-test were employed to analyse the data. Results revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic situation has negatively affected the income of the farmers (before COVID-19, farmers had gained Rs.25606.06 as a monthly income but after COVID-19 farmers have gained Rs.15757.57 as a monthly income), the cost of education of farmers’ children (before COVID-19, money spent on the education of children was Rs.8045.45 but after COVID-19, it was Rs.10295.45), market access (before COVID-19, 81.82% of the respondents had good market access but during the COVID-19, 12.12% of the respondents had good market access) and market price of agricultural commodities (before COVID-19, 81.82% of the respondents had good market price but during the COVID-19, 12.12% of the respondents had good market price of their commodities). Also, farmers could not repay monthly premium and interest on time during the negative economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, results revealed that financial reservoirs, non- interest loan and request for concession period were used by farmers as the strategies to avoid loan default rate. Research findings highlighted the important strategies and gave remedial measures to improve loan repayment capacity of the farmers who borrowed agricultural loans from Govi Jana Bank during the pandemic period. Keywords: Agriculture Loan, COVID-19 Pandemic, Interest Rate, Loan Default, On- Time Payments   &nbsp

An Analysis of the Application of Human Resource Management (HRM) Practices in Agricultural Farms: Perception of Farm Employees

Human resources in organisations are the organisational assets that direct organisations towards their goals. Human Resource Management (HRM) is the process of managing those valuable assets while improving their performance. This study aims to analyse the HRM function of agricultural farms, which have a unique organisational function in contrast to other business firms. Furthermore, we used two different farming businesses under two different management systems as private and public. Recruitment and selection, performance evaluation, reward management, training and development, discipline and grievances, health and safety, leadership and motivation, working conditions and relationships were analysed as the key HRM practices of these farms. Moreover, this study has attempted to contrast these HRM practices under public and private management systems and finally aims to give suggestions and recommendations to improve the HRM practices in agricultural farms. The primary data were collected from 40 employees from each farm which were selected using simple random sampling via a pretested questionnaire.  Descriptive analysis and Wilcoxon signed rank test were used for the data analysis.  According to the results, the private farm (Mean:3.88) has the formal recruitment and selection practices and but not in the public farm (Mean:3.45). Reward management practices are well functioning in the public farm (Mean:3.25) than in the private farm (Mean:3.1). The performance evaluation process of the private farm (Mean:2.93) is more informal, and the public farm (Mean:3.65) has a formal evaluation process for permanent employees. Furthermore, the public farm (Mean:3.3) does not have  a good health and safety management process compared to privately owned farm (Mean:4.05). The public farm (Mean: 3.02) does not conduct scheduled training programmes for their staff when compared to private farms (Mean:4.05). Both farms do not conduct proper orientation programmes for their newly recruited employees. Nevertheless, the overall satisfaction towards the working conditions and relationships, discipline and grievance management, and leadership and motivation of both farms were satisfactory. Finally, this study recommended that reward management, health and safety management, training and development should be improved in public farms, while reward management and performance management should be further improved in private farms. Keywords: Function of HRM, Employee Perception, Private Farm, Public Far

Impact of Strategic Role Behaviour on Employee Performances

Private sector related to the agrochemicals plays a vital role in the agrochemical industry in Sri Lanka. There is a huge competition among agrochemical companies in Sri Lanka. Employee’s performance is the key driving force for the market competition and productivity of the company. Analysing the discrepancy between potential and actual performance of the employees is crucial for those agrochemical companies. Hence, this research focused to identify the determinants of the discrepancy of employee performance and to identify the impact of employer’s strategic role behavior on performances. One of the leading private sector agrochemical Company in Sri Lanka was purposively selected for this study. Primary data was collected from randomly selected 50 employees using structured questionnaire. Standard statistical procedures, such as regression analysis, Pearson correlation analysis and Wilcoxon sign rank test were employed to analyze the data. The study concluded that employee’s personal determinants namely employees experience, skills, motivation and confidence are significantly affect for the discrepancy of employee performances while managerial role on employees performances namely organizing procedure, delegation, authority distribution and management, coordination among employees have significant negative impact on employee performances(p=0.000). According to the Pearson correlation analysis, the age of the employees have significant correlation with employees work load & schedule. Past experience of the employees have significant correlation with role ambiguity, employees planning ability, skills of the employees, confidence and the motivation of the employees. Furthermore, this study suggested that organization management in agro chemical companies must focused on employee’s personal factors and managerial behavior apart from strategic role behaviour in order to improve the employee’s performance effectively. Keywords: Agro chemical company, Employee performances, Human resource practices, Strategic human resource management, Strategic role behavio

Impact of Sustainable HRM Practices on Employee Performance: A Study of Employees in a Selected Private Sector Company in Sri Lanka

Private sector plays a distinct role in Sri Lankan economy at the present context. Lack of employee performance is one of the major challenging problems faced by the private sector organizations. Private sector organizations incur a huge investment on improving employee performances and introduce novel HRM practices in order to improve employee performance. Sustainable HRM is also such a novel concept aimed at improving employee performance with sustainable outcomes. The major objective of conducting this study is to investigate current sustainable HRM practices and to identify the impact of those sustainable HRM practices on employee performance in one of the leading broiler companies in Sri Lanka. Based on the objectives of the study, semi structured questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 100 employees through simple random sampling and the collected data was analyzed descriptively and statistically. Sustainable recruitment and selection, sustainable training and development and sustainable motivation and rewards were considered as the major factors to identify the existing sustainable HRM practices in the company and to test the willingness of employees for implementing sustainable HRM practices. Findings of the study reveal that all the selected sustainable HRM practices were existed within the company and employees were willing to practice, except the practices which are related with advanced technology. In case of impact identification of sustainable HRM practices on employee performance, sustainable recruitment and selection have a significant negative impact. Sustainable motivation and rewards have a significant positive impact on employee performance. In case of identifying the constraints for practicing sustainable HRM practices in the company, lack of knowledge was identified as the most affecting constraint. Consequently, the results of this study may give policy implications for the company to enhance employee performance with sustainable HRM practices while expanding existing literature on sustainable HRM in Sri Lankan context. Keywords: Employee performance, Sustainable HRM, Sustainable motivation and rewards, Sustainable recruitment and selection, Sustainable training and developmen

FACTORS AFFECTING WORK STRESS, SELF-EFFICACY, AND JOB PERFORMANCE OF BANKING OFFICERS IN KALMUNAI, AMPARA DISTRICT

Employee performance is significantly impacted by job stress and self-efficacy which has numerous practical and financial consequences. Self-efficacy is related to job performance, burnout, stress, and role adjustment. Self-efficacy may be regarded as a factor favorably influencing staff morale and, consequently productivity. One of the industries with the most stressful workplaces is the banking sector. Hence, this study aims to investigate how work stress and self-efficacy affect bank workers' performance. Data collection was done using thirty four banking employers in Kalmunai in the Ampara district using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive and non-parametric statistical analysis were used for the data analysis. According to the findings of this research, it can be observed that there is a positive correlation between self-efficacy and job performance and a negative correlation between work stress and job performance of employees. Hence, it can be concluded that self-efficacy has a direct impact on the improvement of job performance in any kind of profession while job stress inhibits job performance. Civil status, work experience, salary level, and number of dependents of bank employees have a high association with work stress and self-efficacy

Factors constraining Farmers’ adoption of new Agricultural Technology Programme in Hambantota District in Sri Lanka: Perceptions of Agriculture Extension Officers

AbstractThis paper examines the major factors constraining the adoption of a newly introduced paddy improvement technology programme by farmers in the Hambantota district, as seen from the perspective of Agricultural extension officers. Further, the adoption pattern of those technological programmes by farmers was analyzed. A structured interview schedule was used to collect data from a purposively selected sample of 30 AI officers. Data was analyzed using the principal factor model with iteration and Varimax rotation. Later, the simple linear regression analysis was done to explain any relationship between the adoption levels of farmers in each of the adoption stages. The results showed that a majority of AI officers perceived that only 40-60 per cent of farmers actually adopted the new technology programme. As for the percentage of farmers who proceeded to adopt each stage of the multi-stage process, the majority of the farmers in the community progressed to the awareness stage but only about 50 per cent of farmers continued until the final adoption stage was reached. Among the factors constraining the adoption could be cited a lack of resources, incompatibility and complexity of new technology, socio-economic and cultural constraints. Inadequacies in extension intervention, technical training and information were the main constraints that compromised the information and knowledge network. Moreover, the Yaya 2 programme was hindered by environmental and economic barriers, poor educational competencies of farmers and weak information links with the other actors of the network. Further, the study was unable to predict any significanct relationship between the adoption levels of farmers in each of the adoption stages. These findings suggest that there is an urgent need for researchers, policy makers and administrators of the extension service to consider these constraints seriously so as to overcome them to increase the adoption rate by farmers of the new paddy technology programme in Hambantota.Keywords: Agricultural Technology, Farmers, Adoption Stages, Adoption, Constraint