Evaluating Total Sustainability Levels of Coconut Plantations in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sustainable coconut plantations are performing balance between economic, social andenvironmental criteria. Those cultivations are able to produce sufficient, affordable andquality nuts while protecting the environment and biodiversity. Furthermore, such plantationsensure economically viable farming methods and satisfy well being of local communitieswhile maintaining all these criteria in long run.

Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) is a comprehensive and widely used tool to aid decisionmakingwhere there is a choice to be made between competing options. It is particularlyuseful as a tool for sustainability assessments.It provides a structured and transparent way ofanalysing complex issues and ideally suited to sustainability assessment because it can handlea large number of diverse assessment criteria.

The study was conducted to assess economic, social and environmental sustainability ofcoconut plantations in the coconut triangle to develop Total Sustainability Index (TSI) inorder to rank the plantations based on their current performance levels and to identify theconstrains and suggest appropriate remedial measures to increase the sustainability.

Fifteen mature coconut plantations in Kurunegala, Gampaha and Chilaw districts which arehaving more than 50 ha were selected by using simple random sampling method. Theprimary data were collected by interviewing plantation managers through a structuredquestionnaire. MCA was employed to assess each plantation in terms of economic, social andenvironmental criteria.

Total Sustainability Index for evaluating coconut plantations was developed by using multicriteria analysis; TSI = (WENV×ENVA) + (WSOC×SOCA) + (WECO×ECOA). Where; WENV,WSOC and WECO represent Weight for Environmental Social and Economic criteriarespectively. ENVA, SOCA and ECOA are stand for Environmental, Social and Economicstatus of the plantation A.

According to TSI, Narammala plantation had the highest value. Results of Kruskal WallisOne-Way ANOVA test revealed that, there was a significant difference amongst theplantations in the coconut triangle (P<0.05). According to the results of Pairwise comparison,plantations in Puttalam district were significantly different from the plantations inKurunegala and Gampaha districts. Puttalam showed worst performance levels in Totalsustainability. However, Kurunegala and Gampaha showed more or less same performance.