ABSTRACT:The

Frozen shrimp and finfish are important export products in Sri Lankan economy. Careful evaluation of growth trends and competitiveness of these products is important in further value chain development and sustainable economic profits. The present study examined the growth performance and export competitiveness of frozen shrimp and major finfish exports from Sri Lanka during 2000-2015. Analysis of finfish exports showed that bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) and yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) were dominant export products. Compound growth rate analysis (CGR) of frozen shrimp indicated that there was a negative growth rate in terms of both export value (-9.3%) and export quantity (-9.07%) during 2000-2015. Fresh chilled fish, frozen fish and fish fillet and other meat have shown positive growth rates in export value (5.09, 10.24 and 70.10% respectively). However, considerable instability (11.07 and 11.74 in terms of value and quantity) was recorded in fish fillet and other meat. Export competitiveness index (XCl) for fresh/chilled fish, frozen fishand fish fillet showed positive competitiveness (XCl>1) during 2001-2015. Revealed comparative advantage (RCA) for finfish exports have shown strong competitiveness (RCA≥ 4) during 2000-2015. Frozen shrimp exports were weakly competitive (1<RCA≤2) during 2008-2015. Finfish exports have shown significant positive growth (p<0.05) in unit value realisation while frozen shrimp exports have shown non-significant (p>0.05) negative growth in unit value realisation. Expansion of export markets for Sri Lankan seafood products, value addition, compliance with international standards and diversification of shrimp exports are important further steps to sustain the competitive position of Sri Lankan fishery exports.

Tea Small Holdings Development Societies (TSHDS) have been established under the guidance of Tea Small Holdings Development Authority (TSHDA) in Sri Lanka. These Societies were expected to act as bridges among the tea small holders and other relevant organizations including TSHDA and to provide necessary services to the tea small holders in effective and efficient way and to identify the tea small holders actual needs and opportunities through feedbacks. However, with all the reforms in the tea small holdings sector and the institutional intervention, it is not clear that the objectives of the TSHDS have been achieved. Matara district is purposively selected for the study as it contributes more than 13 % of the total tea production in the country and about 17 % of the total tea small holders are residing in Matara. We used a structured questionnaire to interview randomly selected sixhundred tea smallholders selected from six DS. Thi is in addition, to focus group discussions, direct observations and discussions with relevant stakeholders. Descriptive Statistical Tools, Chi-square test, 't' test and Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test were used to analyze and to present data. The study revealed that the TSHDS has not addressed the needs of the tea smallholders in addition to the conventional activities such as advisory services and the government subsidies of TSHDA and other government authorities. Out of the total number of small holders in the sample only 15% were highly satisfied about the TSHDS and another 12% were partially satisfied. The results proved that there is no significant improvement of the tea small holdings sector due to implementation of Tea Societies. The study suggests to strengthen TSHDS through continuous training and providing other necessary assistances to enable them to improve advisory and extension services. In addition, distribution of tea cultivation subsidy more efficiently and effectively to their members with the assistance of the TSHDA to improve the productivity of the tea small holdings. The study also recommends reviewing the structure and function of the TSHDS in order to revitalize the Societies which may be crucial to face the problems of low productivity, degradation of the quality and other emerging issues in the future.

Effectiveness of service delivery system of public sector organizations like Department of Agriculture (DoA) depends on the job satisfaction of the relevant officers. Research Officers (ROs), Agriculture Officers (AOs), Lecturers (LCs) and Subject Matter Specialists (SMSs) are the key officers in the DoA in Sri Lanka Agriculture Service (SLAgS). It is therefore, a pre requisite to improve the job satisfaction of SLAgS officers in the DoA in order to improve the effectiveness of service delivery system. Further, empirical evidence showed that there was a positive relationship between good governance (GG) and job satisfaction. On the other hand, personal and job related factors are also affect job satisfaction of the employees. This study therefore attempted to identify how job satisfaction can be improved via improving good governance perception and other factors of officers of SLAgS working in the DoA. Pre tested questionnaire was used to collect the data from ROs, AOs, LCs and SMSs. Results of the correlation test showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between job satisfaction and GG perception of SLAgS officers (r = 0.673, p= 0.001). It reveals that the favourable GG perception of the employees increased their job satisfaction. In addition, path analysis was performed to identify the direct and indirect factors which positively or negatively influence the GG perception and job satisfaction of the respondents. According to the Path analysis, there was a direct effect of GG perception to job satisfaction and indirect effect of other factors to job satisfaction through GG perception. Job titleTraining Age ß = 0.34 ß = 0.19 ß = 0.27 ß = 0.27 ß = 0.37 ß = 0.37 ß = -0.27 ß = -0.21 ß = 0.30 ß = 0.23 ß = 0.15 ß = 0.20 ß = 0.34 ß = 0.44

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