The Department of Agriculture has urged farmers across Sri Lanka to use water sparingly as a precaution against the possible impact of El Niño conditions, and to switch to short-term crop varieties for the current Yala season, NewsFirst reported.
Director General of the Department of Agriculture Thushara Wickramaarachchi made the call in a statement on Wednesday, advising farmers to plan cultivation around expected reduced water availability but stressing that they “should not be alarmed unnecessarily about cultivation during the Yala season”. Short-duration paddy and field-crop varieties typically use less water and reach harvest before the driest part of the Yala-Inter-Maha transition window in September.
The advisory comes alongside a separate warning from the Disaster Management Centre this week that the country may need to consider seawater purification as a drinking-water contingency if El Niño conditions intensify. Reservoir storage has also been a concern: as of last week, irrigation reservoirs were 63 percent full — adequate for the immediate Yala drawdown but with little headroom for a dry Maha onset later in the year.
El Niño conditions typically weaken the South-West monsoon and shift rainfall away from the wet zone, depressing storage at hydropower and irrigation reservoirs and raising drought risk in dry-zone agricultural districts. The Yala season runs roughly May–August in most cultivation areas, with the short-term varieties recommended by the department able to be harvested in 75–95 days.
No quantitative cultivation-area target or planned crop-substitution figure was published with the Wednesday advisory. The Department of Agriculture has not previously issued a public El Niño-specific Yala advisory in this monsoon cycle.
Sources: NewsFirst — Farmers Urged to Use Water Sparingly Due to El Niño.
