Livelihood capital improvements in the rubber growing community of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Rubber cultivation in Sri Lanka has recently been expanded to the Eastern Province.With an initial observation on the positive effects of this process on the rural community in this region, the present study was conducted to either characterize or quantify the impacts of rubber cultivation on the rural community assessing the livelihood capital assets, i.e. Human, Physical, Natural, Financial and Social aspects. Padiyathalawa Divisional Secretaries area of the Eastern Province with a reasonable number of rubber lands under harvesting was selected for the study. All farmers having mature rubber fields (33) were assessed together with similar number of non-rubber farmers of the same village for comparison. Both types of farmers were in the range of 40-60 years of age and educated up to secondary level in the local school. All had no other occupation than farming and having an average of four members in a family and all had sufficient family labour for on-farm activities. With the additional income generated from rubber, a higher level of Financial capital was observed among rubber farmers. As a result, expenditure of rubber farmers was 40% higher than the rest and its pattern showed that rubber farmers spend more on children's education, family health and charity gaining a higher level of Human capital. Rubber cultivation has not so far influenced the Natural capital since all farmers had equal opportunities in accessing water sources and lands with fertile soils. Further, rubber associated development in Physical capital has made farmers to have basic infrastructure facilities for their houses, some luxury appliances for convenience, facilities to strengthen social connectivity and improvement in farming. With more social interactions, Social capital was found to be higher among rubber farmers. All these findings confirmed the suitability of rubber cultivation as a livelihood improvement strategy in rural development programmes in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka.