Sri Lanka’s drought is no longer merely a weather story. Wells are drying, farmers are losing crops, jobs are disappearing and the Government is now discussing relief for people whose livelihoods are being destroyed by El Niño.
Sri Lanka’s developing drought has crossed an important and uncomfortable line. What began as warnings about El Niño and falling rainfall is increasingly becoming a story about drinking water, food, employment and the ability of rural families to survive.
The Government’s special Cabinet subcommittee on El Niño has now met for the fourth time and acknowledges that people in six districts are already being affected. More significantly, the committee is discussing a programme to assist people who have lost their jobs because of the climatic conditions.
That changes the character of the problem.
Reuters reported yesterday that some farming communities in Ampara and Monaragala are facing exceptionally severe rainfall deficits, with wells, rivers and tanks drying or falling to critically low levels. In some of the affected areas, residents have reportedly faced long intervals between deliveries of drinking water.
For agricultural families, the consequences travel much further than an empty reservoir.
A farmer who loses a crop does not merely lose this month’s vegetables. He may lose the money required for the next cultivation cycle, the income needed to repay borrowing and the ability to employ agricultural labourers who themselves depend upon the season for their livelihood.
Livestock and small rural businesses become casualties too. Reuters documented farmers losing crops and families turning to casual labour as traditional sources of income disappear.
The Government says particular attention is now being paid to protecting vegetable and fruit cultivation and preventing shortages. Officials are also examining measures to maintain continuous water supplies in the affected districts.
Those interventions are necessary, but the real test will be whether they reach communities before distress becomes desperation.
Sri Lanka has lived through drought before. It therefore has no excuse for behaving as though every dry spell is an administrative surprise.
The consequences should already be modelled district by district: available drinking-water capacity, irrigation reserves, crop exposure, livestock requirements, electricity-generation implications, tanker requirements and the number of households whose incomes are threatened.
There is another danger.
Reduced cultivation eventually reaches the supermarket. When supply falls, prices rise. A climatic event beginning hundreds of kilometres from Colombo can therefore arrive at an urban family’s kitchen table disguised as a more expensive bundle of vegetables.
That matters particularly now. Colombo headline inflation has already accelerated sharply, reaching 8 per cent in August according to the latest reported CCPI figures. A prolonged disruption to domestic food production would add another pressure that households can scarcely welcome.
The Government’s decision to establish a Cabinet-level mechanism indicates that it understands the seriousness of the threat. It must now demonstrate that the machinery underneath that committee works just as effectively.
Water bowsers, agricultural support and livelihood assistance cannot become programmes announced in Colombo and discovered weeks later in the provinces.
El Niño cannot be legislated away. Administrative lethargy, however, can.
The rain will eventually return. The question for Government is how many livelihoods will still be standing when it does.
Be that as it may.
