Vol. 11, Issue 12 (2022)

Livestock Development for Livelihood support programme (LDLS) was implemented during 2011-2012 by the Department of Animal Husbandry, Government of Kerala to uplift the socio-economic conditions of the livestock farmers. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the LDLS programme was studied, SWOT matrices were analysed to establish useful strategies for decision making process. The most relevant strategies were arrived at by ranking the four general strategies (Strengths-Opportunities, Strengths-Threats, Weaknesses-Opportunities and Weaknesses-Threats) for the programme. The results of the present study indicated that for the LDLS programme, the focus should be on the strategies that use the strengths of the programme to increase the effects of the opportunities as well as those strategies that use the strengths of the production system and programme to reduce the impacts of the threats. This would imply design of strategies that aim at to further developing the production system features such as effective utilization of multi species programme for enhanced production of milk, meat and egg. The value of match between the different categories of internal and external factors and therefore the value of the subsequent strategy is shown as a gradient of colours ranging from blue (the most highly valued) to red (the least valued).