where the scope for land mining is limited. Examples of such conditions include cases where landlord is
able to directly monitor land abuse, where the land is resistant to mining, and most importantly, when the
land quality is poor. Therefore, the relationship between land quality and the choice of fixed rent tenancy
is in the opposite direction from that of the relationship between farmer skill and the choice of fixed rents.
4. The Data
The data used for the empirical analysis are taken from the Household Survey of the Agricultural
Sector (HSAS) conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics of Sri Lanka in 1988-8927. This
survey collected detailed production information from 15,981 agricultural households in seven of Sri
Lanka’s nine provinces.28 In this paper, the subset of 8428 households that engage in rice cultivation as
self-cultivators, landlords or tenants are included. Since the survey was conducted in most parts of the
island, considerable spatial variation is found in terms of agro-climatic conditions and agrarian institutions.
About 45% of the households are located in the “dry zone” which contains the semi arid lowlands of north
western, north central, eastern and south eastern parts of the island. The dry zone is relatively sparsely
populated and less urbanized than the rest of the country, and contains a large part of Sri Lanka’s non-
plantation agricultural activity. About 34% of the households are in the central hills that range from
elevations of 1000 to 8000 ft above sea level. The central hills are more densely populated than the dry
zone, and are home to the large-scale tea plantations. The wet zone lowlands of western and southern Sri
Lanka contain 21% of the sample households. The wet zone does not have much large-scale agricultural
activity with the exception of coconut in the coastal areas and rubber plantations in the interior. Rice
cultivation in this region is confined largely to small scale, owner operated, subsistence farms.
27
For detailed information on survey methodology of the HSAS, see Dept. Of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka [1993]
28 The Northern and Eastern Provinces were not covered due to the civil war in that part of the country. In addition,
only about 50% of the selected households were surveyed in the Matara district in the Southern Province due to civil
disturbances. Overall, the response rate in the seven surveyed provinces was 88.6%.
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