The Impact of Drought and Adaptation Practices of Rice-growing Communities in Uva Province, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is an island country having a total land area of 65,610 km2 and net land area of 62,705 km2 when inland water body areas are excluded. The total population was estimated at 19.70 million in 2005 with a density of 314 persons /km2 and with population growth of 1.1 %. The Human Development Index in 2004 was 0.255 with life expectancy of 74 years and literacy rate of 90%. The total labour force is about 48% of the population, of which 30% are employed in agriculture. In the late 1970s Sri Lanka began the transformation to a market economy based on liberalized trade or open economy. GDP in 2006 was estimated to US$ 23.5 Bn; per capita GDP was US$ 1355 with GDP growth of 7.4%. GDP in 2006 was comprised of 11% in agriculture, 27% from industry and 62% in services. The share of paddy cultivation in GDP is 3%.

In Sri Lanka, floods, landslides, cyclones, droughts, tsunami and coastal erosion are the main causes for natural disasters and have caused loss of life, and enormous damage and destruction to property and agriculture. In addition, the country incurs a heavy toll on account of man-made disasters such as deforestation, indiscriminate coral, sand and gem mining, and industrial hazards besides ethnic conflicts and occasional political violence in the recent past.

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This study was part of a regional project conducted by the Save Our Rice Campaign of PAN AP in collaboration with sixteen network partner organizations. The aim was to assess the level of vulnerability and adaptive capacities of rice-growing communities in the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh by documenting the impacts of climate change on the communities and their adaptation practices. The longer-term goal was to identify ways to improve the adaptive capacities of these and other vulnerable communities. From 2009 to March 2011, twenty studies were carried out.

Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP) holds the right to this publication. The publication may be cited in part as long as PAN AP and the organization/s which wrote the report/s used are properly acknowledged as the source and PAN AP is furnished with copies of the final work where the quotation or citation appears.

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"Impacts of Climate Change and Existing Adaptation Strategies by Rice-Growing Communities in Asia", click on the cover photo on the right.

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