Nearly 8,000 acres of cultivated land have been damaged by the prevailing dry weather, affecting around 7,000 farmers, the Agricultural and Agrarian Insurance Board has said.
Board Chairman Pemasiri Jasingarachchi told Ada Derana that crop damage has been reported in Monaragala, Polonnaruwa, Hambantota, Anuradhapura and Puttalam. Inspections and assessments of the affected farmland are under way to establish the extent of the losses.
Rs. 3 billion set aside
Jasingarachchi said Rs. 3 billion has been allocated for crop-damage compensation, and that payments to farmers whose cultivations have been hit are expected once the damage assessments are complete. He said compensation should be provided before the end of the current cultivation season.
The five districts named are those where crop damage has been recorded, and are not a measure of the dry spell’s full reach. The Disaster Management Centre has been reporting drinking-water distribution across a wider set of districts, and the number of districts described as affected has varied between official statements over the past week.
A deepening dry season
The crop losses land alongside a run of dry-weather indicators. Islandwide reservoir storage has fallen to about 36%, with tanks in the dry zone close to empty, and forecasters said this week that the country is within reach of a 43-year-old heat record. Dry-weather relief measures had already reached 81,765 people across seven districts by August 21.
Ada Derana did not report how the Rs. 3 billion allocation compares with the assessed value of the damage so far, the per-acre compensation rate, or which crops account for the bulk of the affected land.
