Assessing smallholder farmers' vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change in Sri Lanka : Towards a sustainable livelihood framework

Smallholders are small-scale rural farmers that produce mainly subsistence crops on two acres of land or less. They are generally poor, uneducated, and live in rudimentary houses with no electricity, running water or sanitation. They are also entirely dependent on agriculture for their incomes. As such, smallholders are extremely vulnerable to climate variability and climate change - any decline in their crop yields will has a significant impact on their livelihood and often means they cannot feed their families.