The shortage of rainfall has had a severe impact on the agriculture sector in the country, which is still reeling from the effects of the drought experienced earlier this year.
Farmers from Sagama, Ampara are facing a severe crisis as the reservoir which irrigates their fields have dried up. The shortage of water has caused 500 acres of farmland to wilt away.
Two thousand (2,000 families) whose main source of income is agriculture, have been affected as a result.
Survival of the dairy industry
Dairy farmers in Ampara are also in this unfortunate, drought-hit struggle, with lives of about 30,000 heads of cattle which graze on the meadow adjacent to the reservoir at risk due to the lack of food and water.
“We are unable to give drinking water for about 30,000 cows which live here”, said a dairy farmer
Farmers in Ambagahawewa, Thalgaswewa, Dunudembuwewa and Ittikulama (Nochchiyagama Administrative Division), have also been affected by the shortage in rainfall.
Four hundred (400) families who live in these villages have been left with no means by which to protect their crops, given the lack of rain.
“I had to pawn my wife’s earrings to get fertiliser for the fields. Now there is nothing I can do. We have only become poorer. We will be forced to beg or consume poison”, said a farmer
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