Abstract:
Nowadays, improving Dairy farming systems faces greater challenges and
difficulties in tropical countries compare to temperate countries. In this present study
investigate the determinants of milk yield on the dairy farming systems, with the objective
of evaluating the relevance of conventional dairy development approaches under local
production condition in the Kilinochchi District of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. A
cross-sectional survey was conducted among 66 dairy farms, which were comparatively
assessed based on herd size, management system, housing conditions, seasonal
management practices, reproductive technology adoption, and disease occurrence. The
data set were analysed by using the multiple regression to identify the milk yield as an
independent variable one-way ANOVA to compare production across management-related
groups, and chi-square tests to examine associations between farm characteristics and
disease prevalence. The analysis identified herd size as the highly significant with milk
yield (β = 0.42, p = 0.001), accounting for 31.2% of the observed variation in production.
In contrast, management system showed no significant effect on milk yield (F = 2.532, p
= 0.087) or disease prevalence (χ2 = 4.881, p = 0.087). Disease prevalence was high,
affecting 63.6% farms in Kilinochchi district. However, no significant associations were
observed with housing type, seasonal variation, or stocking density. Adaptation for
Artificial insemination in Kilinochchi district was relatively high (60.6%), these results
indicating a gap between technology adoption and effective utilisation. This study findings
give that, structural scale in Kilinochchi farms, represented by herd size, plays a more
decisive role in dairy productivity than farm-level management practices. These findings
highlight the need for future dairy development strategies to improve management, locally
adapted feeding, upgrading practices suitable for the conditions of Northern in Sri Lanka
that would be necessary to improve productivity of dairy farms.
