Agricultural knowledge plays a pivotal role in the process of transforming the livelihoods of farmers relied on subsistence agriculture. However, development of credible approaches to "share" the indigenous and scientific knowledge in possession of farmers in order to enhance their competitive edge in agriculture has become a challenge at present. This paper explores the applicability of theconcept of 'Technology Stewardship' in order to promote sustainable knowledge sharing amongst the agricultural farming communities in Sri Lanka. A community consultative process adopted with the officials ("Sponsors") and a series of structured questionnaire-based face-to-face interviews and keyinformant surveys carried out with a cross section of smallholder agriculture farmers (n=183) in the Batticaloa and Kurunegala districts facilitated gathering of baseline data/information, and in turn, to select and train six Technology Stewards (TEs). A number of field experiments ("Campaigns") were conducted then with smallholder farmers (n=260) "with" and "without" the assistance of those TEs during April 2014 to July 2015. The 'FrontlineSMS' (a low-cost, user-friendly, free and open source text messaging software) and Freedom Fone (low cost Interactive Voice Responses software) were applied to evaluate the effectiveness of knowledge sharing through the TEs work with these communities. It was found that the use of "Texting" and "Voice" facilities in day-today agricultural communication has been increased by 22% and 8%, respectively, when the process has been assisted by the TEs. This implies that TEs can effectively be utilized, with capacity development through intensive training modules, to reduce the transaction costs associated with sharing of information with farmers, starting from the lowest socioeconomic category in such communities.

Development of credible approaches to share indigenous and scientific knowledge in possession of farmers, especially those engage in rural subsistence agriculture, has become a necessity in order to enhance their competitive edge in agriculture, however, remains as a challenge at present. The concept of Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) has, in the light of this, gained much prominence, where the role of information and communication technologies to promote sustainable agriculture is of greater attention. On this rationale, this study was carried out to explore the possibility of applying Free Open Source Software (FOSS) technologies, in combination of mobile technologies, to promote sustainable knowledge mobilization amongst the agricultural communities in Sri Lanka. Multi-stage community consultations with designated officials (partners) and pre-tested structured questionnaire-based face-to-face interviews with randomly selected smallholder agriculture farmers (n=272) from Batticaloa, Kurunegala, Matale and Puttalam Districts were employed to gather baseline data. Eight campaigns were carried out with the farmers (n=720) from the same geographical areas, where the three FOSS technologies, namely: (1) FrontlineSMS for Texting (2) FreedomFone for Interactive Voice Responses or Voice-Call and (3) Ushahidi for Interactive mapping, were applied to evaluate the possibility and effectiveness of knowledge sharing within those farming communities. It was revealed that FOSS intervention augments the Texting, Voice-Call and Interactive-mapping usage in dayto-day agricultural communication by 21, 18 and 5 percent, respectively. The key demographic factors considered, including the age and educational levels of farmers have triggered the process of knowledge mobilization positively. Outcome of the study, overall, infers that, with a fitting mechanism in place, this approach can be promoted as a drive for positive changes in agriculture-based rural communities in developing countries like Sri Lanka.

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.

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