Transforming Livelihood Assets into Sustainable Livelihood Strategies: Exploring the Case of Rural Agricultural Systems in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Livelihoods of people depend not only on the amount of assets they possess, but also on their capacity to utilize them rightfully through various livelihood strategies, because the dominant policy frameworks and institutional setup — local to national — may hinder achieving the objective of alleviating rural poverty through improved resource utilization. The purpose of this study was to investigate this phenomenon, using the Conceptual Livelihood Framework developed by the Food & Agriculture Organization (CLF/FAO), in the context of rural communities in tank-based agricultural systems in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka. The livelihood assets were classified into an “asset pentagon’ comprised of: (1) social; (2) physical; (3) human; (4) financial, and (5) natural, and several potential livelihood strategies. The data were collected from 60 households covering more than 95% households in the Gampola village in the Giribawa Divisional Secretariat Division in the North-Western Province by means of the Participatory Rural Appraisal technique5, including direct observation, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and structured questionnaire-based survey. The outcome of analysis highlights that these household5 lack the financial assets as a whole; vary in the ownership of human and physical assets’ and depend greatly on the natural assets, but fairly rich in social assets. Thi5 5ituation has led them to utilize a mix of different livelihood strategies such as direct utilization of the tank 5ystem (e.g. fishing, aquatic products), adjacent forest (e.g. non-timber, grazing) and agrobiodiversity products (e.g. seasonal / underutilized) alongside private on-farm (e.g. paddy, contract farming) and off-farm (e.g. markets) income sources. But there are clear evidences to show that livelihood of people. are affected largely by lack of support from existing institutions and unclassified resource utilization policies