In the rice paddies of Lanka, a new enemy: salt

Practical Action is backing seed trials to help farmers hit hard by climate change, reports British Guardian journalist Raekha Prasad from Hambantota

Under a dark sky on the southern tip of Sri Lanka, his bare feet buried in sticky mud, S.D. Ranjith thwacked a trowel into his sodden paddy field and lamented the passing of better times.

"The rains are heavier now and they stretch continuously for days. It's so much colder at night. The dry season has lengthened and it feels hotter than before. And the winds that come from the sea are getting stronger and stronger," he said.

Mr. Ranjith's observations are not the nostalgia of an elderly man. He is only 37, with a toddler and a baby to bring up. They stem from the fact that he has to battle with the elements in the village of Manajjawa in ways his father never did. Over the past eight years, his two and a half acres of land in the poorest coastal district in Sri Lanka have become so salty that his plants have stopped yielding rice. "The river outlet to the sea got so silted that water comes upstream and contaminates the land," Mr. Ranjith said.

Each week Mr Ranjith and 15 other farmers dig a five-metre (15ft) wide sand well at the mouth of sea and river with their bare hands and trowels to drain away the salty flow. "It used to be much easier, but the waves are now going over our heads. It's very risky but we go there because we have no other choice."

Rice is Sri Lanka's staple food and paddy farming is the livelihood of 1.8 million families. But the changing climate is wiping out rice crops. Tales of rising temperatures and heavier rains are backed up by the country's scientists, who have recorded some of the world's biggest leaps in surface temperatures.

"These extremes of heavy rain and long dry spells are leading to more frequent floods. We've also experienced more droughts in recent years," said Senaka Basnayake, senior meteorologist and head of the Centre for Climate Change Studies, a government body, adding that the frequency and intensity of tornadoes had also grown. "The damage they're doing is much greater than before," he said.

Worryingly, for a country with an 800-mile coastline badly affected by the 2004 tsunami, the government has yet to conduct research on rising sea levels.

The salination of Manajjawa's smallholdings, just over a mile from the shoreline, has already forced one quarter of the population to abandon their fields. They are the first generation in centuries of paddy cultivators unable to feed their families from their harvest.

Ten years ago Mr Ranjith earned 12,000 rupees (now £57) during one season, but with the worsening conditions he struggled to make half that sum and was forced to take up labouring on construction sites or digging other farmers' fields.

"When the west says poorer countries need to adapt to climate change, it has to acknowledge that in rural Sri Lanka increasing droughts and floods are already slowly making people poorer and poorer," said Vishaka Hidellage, country director of Practical Action in Sri Lanka, which is working with the farmers to secure their livelihoods. "To adapt you need planning and investment. These farmers are barely coping."

The tsunami signalled ruin to farmers in Manajjawa. With crops wiped out by the seawater and land lost to salinity, they faced destitution. Then one farmer suggested they try a traditional rice believed to be saline tolerant that had not been cultivated since higher-yielding varieties were introduced 50 years ago.

Mr. Ranjith is one of 16 farmers who took part in trials of 10 varieties of traditional rice in small plots of their abandoned fields, supported by Practical Action and a national farming federation. Seven successfully grew and yielded quality, completely organic rice - coveted by Sri Lanka's urban middle-class.

This season Practical Action has expanded the project by giving 10,000kg of traditional rice seeds to 178 farmers. Some farmers have prepared soil for planting that has been barren for years.

Mr. Ranjith's traditional rice has grown well, along with his income. Because traditional varieties are more valuable and do not require fertilisers and pesticides, his overheads have shrunk, breaking the cycle of borrowing to buy chemicals that has landed him in crippling debt.

He is waiting for the rains to slow so that he can sow this season's seeds. He plans to plant one acre, recovering half of his abandoned land. "I'll be able to keep a 5,000 rupee profit," he said. "I have to settle the loans but for the first time, I feel optimistic that I can."