Drought, floods slash Sri Lanka’s rice production, threaten food security

ROME: A severe drought followed by floods has slashed agricultural production in Sri Lanka, leaving some 900,000 people facing food insecurity, the United Nations said, warning that without help the situation might further deteriorate.

Production of rice, the country’s staple food, is forecast to drop almost 40 per cent to 2.7 million tonnes in 2017, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) said in a report yesterday.

Other crops including pulses, chillies and onion are also expected to take a blow, it said.

Sri Lanka was hit by the worst drought in four decades last year, with poor rains continuing into 2017, causing many farmers to lose their crops and income, the agencies said.

In May, the situation was exacerbated by the worst torrential rains in 14 years, which triggered floods and landslides in the country’s southwest, killing some 200 people and forcing many from their homes.

But in drought-affected areas in the north, rains were not sufficient to replenish reservoirs, and the second 2017 rice paddy harvest is expected to be at least 24 per cent lower than last year’s, said FAO official Cristina Coslet.

“The level of water in irrigation reservoirs is still well below the average,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. — Reuters