Waruni Jayathunga
Agriculture has an unchanging demand, mainly due to its heavy contribution to food security. It is one of the key sectors that contribute significantly to the development of any country’s economy, interacting with other sub-sectors related to increasing economic growth, reducing poverty, creating rural development, and achieving environmental sustainability. Agriculture accounted for 8.3% of Sri Lanka’s GDP in 2023.
The Sri Lankan agriculture sector is now experiencing a number of difficulties that have a detrimental impact on its development and sustainability. Key challenges include productivity stagnation, high production costs, marketing issues, food insecurity, resource degradation, health hazards, climate change uncertainty, agricultural poverty, lower product variety, and lower innovativeness. Regrettably, the agricultural industry is becoming less attractive to young people, particularly educated youth, at an increasing rate, which has become a global trend, causing them to seek more dynamic and appealing career opportunities. These issues have become more complicated day by day indicating the need for proper remedial measures to achieve the real benefits of agriculture. However, it is recognized that the agriculture sector has a bigger potential for upgrading the living circumstances of rural areas and producing food for the country, therefore it is vital to provide methodologies contribution.
Traditionally, agriculture has been recognized as an industry with the least technical engagement, with limited dynamism toward development, and a stronger link to small family farms that have been undertaking the same course throughout the past, with less drive to change the processes. Traditionally, agriculture has been recognized as an industry with the least technical engagement, with limited dynamism toward development, and a stronger link to small family farms that have been undertaking the same course throughout the past, with less drive to change the processes. Economic liberalization in the world, combined with reduced protection for the agricultural market and a critical view presented by society, has resulted in significant changes to this perspective, and the current context is capable of significantly surpassing the recognition presented on Agri-entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is a process associated with creating economic value by providing a unique package of resources that allows one to exploit newer opportunities that have not yet been accessed. It has been observed that there is no single precedent definition applicable to agricultural entrepreneurship. But it can be defined as the capacity of a farmer to create new opportunities that are structured either as an extension of a current business or as a separate business endeavor in order to enhance and improve the outputs and profits made. According to Naminse and Zhuang (2018), an agri-entrepreneur is a person who works in the agricultural sector, either full-time or part-time, in both farm-related activities (such as soil cultivation, crop growth, and livestock rearing) and non-farm-related activities (such as market research and customer service), and who is trying to implement newer strategies to increase profits. Interestingly, entrepreneurship and agriculture are two well-known but rarely combined ideas in the modern world, with a greater emphasis on how each contributes to the economic values of a nation.
Activities carried out in the farm environment are linked to the on-farm entrepreneurship segment, which aims to enhance the productivity and performance of the current farm-based business unit. Whereas the off-farm idea refers to new commercial endeavors that are run off the farm in an effort to enhance performance by incorporating more recent opportunities. According to Beedell and Rehman (2000), the primary definitions of entrepreneurship that have been proposed with an emphasis on the European farming sector and the state of agricultural entrepreneurship in Europe are those that contend that knowledge of farmers’ attitudes and motivation to engage in such activities must be linked to entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector. It has been recognized that having a small business cannot explicitly be suggested as the verification criteria for an entrepreneur.
However, it needs to be coupled with the intention of developing the firm, while increasing the leadership and managerial talents in order to fulfill the goals. Cheng and Liang suggest that the impact of agricultural entrepreneurship on younger farmers is greater than that of older farmers. This is primarily because younger farmers have more time to experiment and are more inclined to balance agricultural production and enhance rural life. However, research has indicated that the younger generation contributes relatively little to the agricultural industry and that there is a positive association between the declining national revenue associated with the agricultural sector and this generation. Certain research studies on the other hand have showcased that the promotion of entrepreneurship education in the universities is unable to fully cater the entrepreneurship intention on the youth, and they argue that administrative barriers existing towards such ventures are to be removed while launching programs to support young entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship related education in the country has become a prominent requirement.
The propensity of entrepreneurs to take on jobs explicitly in the government sector rather than taking risks is the main topic of debate, though. For those young entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka, the best options are to increase the commercial orientation of farming activities, change their perception of agriculture by producing high-quality goods, improve the value chain, and embrace export market prospects. However, the agricultural industry continues to be traditional and contributes relatively little in practically every way. It is believed that this sector must be transformed from its traditional standing to its commercialized state in order to become dynamic. However, the ability to improve the performance of agricultural entrepreneurs is a major determinant of commercialization.
Promoting agri-entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka is important because it can help reduce poverty by increasing farm incomes, creating jobs, and lowering food prices. It increases employment by creating more jobs in processing and logistics, especially in rural areas, and creates a more equitable distribution of wealth because agripreneurship can help reduce the gap between urban and rural areas by creating more opportunities for young people in rural areas, promoting economic growth by creating new businesses and value-added products, improving food security through domestic food production, etc.
Entrepreneurship is an important ability that can be developed through leadership and other attributes; nonetheless, it has been discovered that the majority of entrepreneurial skills are induced by external events. However, the majority of entrepreneurs worldwide are limited to specific industries, and the number of persons interested in managing entrepreneurship activities in the agriculture sector is limited. Therefore, governments need to focus on building up the agricultural sectors, mainly in rural areas, by training farmers towards entrepreneurship and also food manufacturers to better understand technical requirements and meet international standards. The first step in ensuring food security in developing countries is to educate farmers so that they can access and understand standards and regulations of export markets. The training can be provided through seminars, hands-on workshops, and publications, which enable exporters to more easily overcome technical barriers to trade.
