Agricultural Livelihoods and Displacement in Sri Lanka: the Reality of the IDP Regime

Abstract

This paper examines how internal displacement affects the agricultural livelihoods. Household data used in the paper was collected from welfare camps in Batticaloa, eastern Sri Lanka, where the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the village of Sampur were encamped. The field work was done in 2007 and 2008. These Tamil IDPs, after a three year encamped-existence in Batticaloa, have at the time of writing been moved to temporary shelters in three villages in Mutur DSD. As expected, displacement has had a statistically significant negative impact on their livelihoods. Agriculture based livelihoods were special because these were the most affected and also because their subcategories—farming, livestock farming and fishing—had been affected differently. We were able to link these differences with the degree of dependence of livelihoods on immovable private (paddy land) or common property (sea) assets. The abruptness and the life threatening nature of conflict displacement had also affected assets like livestock, and agricultural equipment, which are normally mobile. We are able to quantify such losses among the households in Sampur and are able to link such losses to the impoverishment of the households. The analysis is based on the DfID livelihoods approach extended to cover conflict settings.