Abstract:
Rice is a staple food of more than half of the world’s population; more than 3.5 billion
inhabitants depend on rice daily (Maclean et al., 2013). Paddy farmers around the world,
especially Asian farmers who are responsible for 90.7% of the world’s total rice
production (Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 2019), often find it difficult to
choose the paddy variety that gives the highest reward in the end of the cultivating
season.
Even though the years of experience and knowledge passed down from generations can
support them in making this decision, the lack of information on modern biotechnological
advancements and improved technologies that poses as barriers for the Sri Lankan farmer
to obtain higher potential yields Walisadeera, A. I., Wikramanayake, G. N., & Ginige, A.
(2013).
Present day, Sri Lankan rice farmers has been faced with a choice between traditional and
high‐yielding rice varieties which emphasises the need of a complex multi-attribute
utility model which carefully captures subjective probability distributions in all varieties
(Herath, Hardaker and Anderson, 1982).
Hence a need of a more systematic approach to eliminate the production limitations by
choosing the most suited rice variety that perfectly harmonizes the geographic features,
climatic factors, available resources of the farmer together and predicts the harvest, cost
of production and foresees the adverse effects of the natural/environmental forces on the
crop throughout its lifecycle has been identified.
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