Standing where his usual crop of chillis and onions should be sprouting, Herath Wanihami rubs a clod of parched terracotta-coloured soil between his fingers and a fine dust blows onto his white sarong.
The 65-year-old Sri Lankan farmer has already lost most of this year's main paddy harvest due to poor rains. Now he has aborted his vegetable crop altogether because of a severe drought affecting about 1.6 million people - close to 10 percent of the population.
Wanihami can still drink water from a nearby well, but thousands of fellow farmers depend on emergency food handouts and water being trucked in, compounding hardship in a land already ravaged by a two-decade civil war.
"This is the worst drought I've seen in my lifetime," he said, gesturing at the brittle, sand-yellow grasses that litter his 2.5 acre (one hectare) plot of land in this remote village in the north-central district of Anuradhapura.
"I didn't even cultivate this time around because there's no water," he added in his native Sinhalese. "I can survive another six weeks on my earnings from last harvest, that's all."
Sri Lanka is renowned for the monsoon rains that usually carpet the tear-shaped island off the toe of India with lush green jungle and paddy fields, but cyclical droughts traditionally hit swathes of north-central, central and south-eastern Sri Lanka every four to five years.
Dry spells are now increasingly frequent, however, as global climate change takes its toll. The last major drought was just two years ago. And periodic flooding is just as damaging to crops.
In the 1980s, the Mahaweli River that traverses Sri Lanka was diverted to feed a vast network of rain-catching water tanks and irrigation canals built hundreds of years ago by ancient kings.
But the river level has fallen sharply in the absence of rain, and cattle now graze on the beds of some tanks. Five of Sri Lanka's 25 districts have been severely hit, while more than a dozen have been affected in total.
"About 50,000 families are affected islandwide from lack of drinking water and 150,000 acres of land for cultivation have been hit by the drought," said Maithripala Sirisena, government minister in charge of overseeing the Mahaweli River Basin tank network.
"There will be a reduction in paddy production as a result of the drought in the next season. We will have to import paddy as a result," he added, estimating that about 25 percent of Sri Lanka's paddy output would be lost. "Animals are not dying yet."
Months of prolonged drought have forced more pain on the economy, already dented by a stalemate in efforts to turn a cease-fire between the government and notorious Tamil Tiger rebels into a permanent peace after a bloody 20-year war for a separate Tamil state.
The Central Bank trimmed its 2004 economic growth forecast in June to 5.0-5.5 percent because of the drought, and high international oil prices are creating more problems.
Sri Lanka imports all of its oil and relies on hydroelectricity for about 70 percent of its power. Now, with water tank levels so low - most tanks are a third full or less - officials have had to close down a 100 megawatt hydro-power station.
"(The drought) may also put pressure on us to rely on thermal power, which is a very costly source of energy," said Treasury Secretary P.B. Jayasundara. "If rainfall comes as expected with monsoons in October, the situation will improve."
As donor agencies help rush supplies of rice, flour and water across the country, the government is trying to find a longer-term solution by deepening and widening existing water tanks, some of which are just a few metres deep.
Plans include digging wells up to 100 metres deep to ensure livestock always have water.
Local media outlets and even the Central Bank have been organising whip-rounds for food donations for affected areas, and members of the national cricket team have rallied around and visited affected villages.
"It is very, very serious," said Wuria Karadaghy, senior regional adviser for the United Nations Development Programme. "It is going to affect not only the people, it's going to affect the environment. I am sure this drought will also affect population movement."
Hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans were displaced by the civil war, and their movement has resulted in jungle being cut down and soil erosion, to which some people attribute erratic weather conditions in part.
Back on his plot of cracked earth, Wanihami can only pray to the gods that monsoon rains will come soon as they have to neighbouring India.
"If it doesn't rain soon, I am really up a gum tree," he said.
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