From Crisis, Opportunity

Sri Lanka's violence has forced Tamilchevi from her land in eastern Sri Lanka several times, most recently when the Army fought a successful campaign to dislodge the Tamil Tiger rebels. Today she's benefiting from our project to distribute seeds and introduce organic growing methods to small-scale rice farmers. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Yesterday I noted here that rice is the dietary staple of all Sri Lankans. Unlike a lot of other rice-eating nations, however, the country relies on imports to meet demand. So you can imagine the panic that struck residents here when, at the height of the global food crisis last April, a host of countries — Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, China, Cambodia and India — announced they would stop exporting rice.

The export curbs didn't last long, but it was a wake-up call for Sri Lanka, where rice prices had already nearly doubled in the span of a few months. Price ceilings were imposed, initiatives to cultivate abandoned land put forth, and the formation of a regional food bank discussed.

The crisis also hatched a Mercy Corps plan to deliver seed vouchers to farmers to alleviate their short-term financial crunch, and expanding the number of seed providers to increase the quality and yield of their crop over the long term. The project, expected to directly benefit 10,000 Sri Lankans, is financed with part of a $2.7-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Today we met one of the farm families who'll benefit from this program, 30-year-old Tamilchelvi Sandivakumau and her husband, Chandrakumar Arumuham, who's 41. We met Tamilchelvi on her property, about a half-acre of land with a one-room brick home, some vegetable plots, a latrine and a tottering old goat shed. Later, we caught up with the husband at the village paddy fields about a half-mile away. He was helping his uncle harvest the paddy in exchange for the standard cut of the crop.

Tamilchelvi told us she'd grown up on this plot of land — and fled from it several times, most recently in 2006, when the Sri Lankan Army started shelling the area in a successful drive to wrest control from the rebel Tamil Tigers. The family fled to safer confines in Kaluthawalai, a coastal town not far away, and boarded with relatives.

When she and her husband and two young daughters returned seven months later, they found their house had been flattened by an elephant. (Elephants were responsible for half of the 7,000 homes destroyed in the area during that period, a government official told me this morning. "An elephant will damage a house for one cup of rice," he said.)

"It was a jungle," said Tamilchelvi. "We had to start from scratch."

They sent their daughters, now ages 8 and 11, back to live with her parents in Kaluthawalai so they could attend a good school. Meanwhile, they struggled to get by.

Harvest time means work for thousands of laborers, who take home a portion of paddy in lieu of cash. About a third of all agricultural land in Sri Lanka is devoted to paddy cultivation. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

They couldn't afford good-quality seed, or the terms of the loans they'd need to finance it. So they plant their one-acre plot of rice each season with seed from the last harvest. As a result, the quality of their crop degrades, and they harvest only about half the amount of paddy as they otherwise would.

They'll soon get a voucher from Mercy Corps to cover two-thirds of the cost of the seed they'll need to double their rice yield. We're also working to boost seed production in the area by developing a network of contract seed-producing farmers and introducing a new, organic rice-growing methodology that's been proven to work elsewhere in Sri Lanka.

The goal, explained my colleague Thushyathan, who manages the program, is to give small rice farmers in this part of eastern Sri Lanka an income boost that's sustainable. It doesn't hurt that in doing so, we're contributing to Sri Lanka's push to become self-sufficient in rice production — a sure boost to the nation's food security.

Tamilchelvi appreciates the support. "We know only our traditional way of living, agriculture," she said. "Any improvements in agriculture will definitely help us improve ourselves."