An Investigation of Information Needs of Coconut Industrialists in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Information can be considered as the most significant assets that contribute to the development of any context in this information era. Among many other industries, there is a high demand for information in the coconut industry as well. Coconut is one of the three major economical industries in Sri Lanka. Thus present study was conducted to investigate the information needs of coconut industrialists in Sri Lanka. Study population consists with 200 coconut exporters and mill owners who registered in the Coconut Development Authority of Sri Lanka. Data were collected through a paper and pencil based questionnaire until the valid responses rate reach 100%. Analysis revealed that 56% of the respondents indicated that they need reliable and up dated information about the local market, while 66.5% were prefer information on the foreign market. 53.5% of the respondents were interested to obtain information about prices of coconut products, while 52% interested about the raw material prices. In addition, respondents are equally interested about the prices and technological information about machineries, storage, market trends, stock exchange, logistics, and fluctuations of product prices. Respondents indicated that currently they are fulfilling their information needs through field officers, CDA’s official website, CDA publications, training workshops, awareness programs. It can be concluded that there is a high demand for information, by the coconut industry of Sri Lanka. It can be suggested to adopt novel technology such as Digital libraries, mobile technologies and cloud applications which can be easily used for information dissemination in any industry of a country.