Unlocking Sri Lanka’s Dairy Potential
Sri Lanka’s dairy and livestock sector is crucial for food security, rural livelihoods, and national nutrition. However, it faces several challenges, including low productivity, climate vulnerability, limited market access, and inadequate financing.
In light of these challenges, Connect to Care and DevPro have formed a partnership through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support Sri Lanka in achieving dairy self-sufficiency.
One of DevPro’s primary goals is to enhance inclusive and resilient dairy value chains by empowering smallholder farmers. This will be accomplished through technical assistance, capacity building, climate-resilient practices, and market-oriented strategies, leveraging DevPro’s extensive field presence across Sri Lanka.
Connect to Care aims to support the target of achieving 100% dairy self-sufficiency by 2033, as outlined in the national development manifesto, with an interim goal of 75% self-sufficiency by 2029.
By strengthening local dairy production and value chains, this initiative will reduce Sri Lanka’s reliance on imported dairy products while improving farmers’ incomes and enhancing domestic supply resilience.
The partnership will emphasize climate-smart dairy development, multi-stakeholder coordination, and the exploration of blended finance and public-private partnership (PPP) models. This will create a structured platform for development partners and the private sector to engage in scalable actions.