Livelihood Resilience of Smallholder Dairy Farmers Against External Shocks: A Case Study in the Northern Dry Zone of Sri Lanka

Improving dairy farmers’ livelihood resilience helps them sustain farming and reap higher economic returns. This study was conducted in the Jaffna District, part of dry zone Sri Lanka. Households’ to environmental challenges shocks determined through Structural Equation Model (SEM). The SEM path diagram developed based on Resilience by FAO, which uses as a latent variable is function six components that are not directly measured from data set. analysis revealed ‘livelihood resilience’ correlates positively significantly with five components. Further, found independent variables, such dietary diversity index (P>|z|=0.081), quality score health services (P>|z|=0.052), frequency assistance (P>|z|=0.000), evaluation land owned (P>|z|=0.086), educational level (P>|z|=0.017), number household members who lost their jobs (P>|z|=0.010), influenced farmers. findings this will help develop policy framework could support gaining sustainability milk production fostering farmers Northern Dry Zone