Supporter: Chandima Arambepola

As the clear skies of Ampara and Batticaloa districts in eastern Sri Lanka are quietly invaded by grey, there is talk of rain. Since a majority of these districts’ residents fully or partially dependent on farming for their livelihood, rain — at the right time — is a boon. Rice is a dietary staple for most Sri Lankans, and the majority of the farmers here cultivate rice paddies. Not unlike other countries, rice is cultivated in Sri Lanka using irrigated water collected during the monsoon rains. Unfortunately, with the lack of rains this year some farmers have been forced to abandon their paddy fields.

Last Thursday, Mercy Corps visited Marian Paikyarajah, a beneficiary of the Global Food Crisis Response project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project assists farmers in the short- and medium-term to improve food security and lay the groundwork for long term solutions.

As we near the village of Navagirinagar, the landscape is dominated by mature golden-yellow paddy fields. The slight drizzle that welcomes us is an indication that the time is right for harvesting, which must be completed before the rains turn into the seasonal downpour — the first sign of the end of one cultivation season and start of another.

Paikyarajah has been a farmer almost all his life. He and his family were displaced in early 2007 as intense fighting erupted between the Sri Lankan government forces and the separatist Tamil Tiger rebel group. Returning home in 2008 with the rest of his neighbors, Paikyarajah was soon confronted with another set of challenges.

In southern and eastern Sri Lanka, Mercy Corps is helping promote the "SRI" method of growing rice.
Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Elephants, trying to ensure their own food security, had trespassed their lands and destroyed many of the villagers’ homes. In addition, the area suffers from a trilogy of cascading problems: pervasive snakes, lack of public transportation and no medical facilities. (As a result, normally curable snake bites can cause death in this area.) Nevertheless, Paikyarajah perseveres and is optimistic about his and his family’s future.

Paikyarajah was among those who volunteered to adopt the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) process. SRI is an alternative method of paddy cultivation that Mercy Corps helped to successfully introduce to farmers in the Hambantota district of Sri Lanka in 2007, and has been using in Batticaloa since 2008. SRI requires less water and promotes the usage of organic fertilizer to increase yields and adopts transplanting rather than the traditional broadcasting method to plant rice seeds so it’s ideal for small plots of land. While Paikyarajah had not heard of SRI before, he was keen to test the method.

This field visit, therefore, is significant. With us is Krishnadas, the SRI facilitator who will help Paikyarajah measure and compare the yields to be expected from SRI and normal rice cultivation.

Paikyarajah, accompanied by his son, greets us at the fields. He has cultivated half an acre using SRI. The remainder of his three acres is cultivated in the using the broadcast method. Paikyarajah and Krishnadas randomly pick a spot in the SRI rice field and begin harvesting within the demarcated area. Krishnadas and I count the number of tillers in each SRI stalk. We quickly count far more than what is found in a stalk of rice cultivated using broadcasting.

The stalks are then taken to Paikyarajah’s house nearby and, using a threshing machine, the rice seeds are separated from the stalks. The same process is adopted to collect rice stalks from the rest of the area cultivated under the broadcast methodology.

The process of threshing and separating the hollow seeds from the good seeds takes time, but once the process is over the rice seeds are collected into gunny sacks and weighed. Krishnadas reads the scale and does the calculations to ascertain the yield: From SRI, Paikyarajah can expect a yield of 40 bags per acre (at approximately 66 kilos per bag) whereas under the broadcast method he would only get 29 bags.

With fewer agricultural inputs and using less water, Paikyarajah will secure a better yield from the SRI method. The outcome is good news to Paikyarajah, since he plans to extend the SRI method to at least another half-acre of land during the upcoming cultivation season. Predicting a positive outcome of SRI, he already has been preparing for the next growing season: At a far corner of his land lays a pile of cow dung, ready to be spread as organic fertilizer on a newly planted crop.

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