Recent flooding in Sri Lanka destroyed more than one-third of the county's upcoming rice harvest, a government official said.
After January's second round of massive flooding, nearly 500,000 acres of the 1.7 million acres of rice planted have been destroyed, IRIN news service of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports.
"We expected a yield of around 2.75 million metric tons from the harvest due in March to April," Kulugammanne Karunathileke, secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, told IRIN. "After the heavy rains we will only get around 1.75 million."
Most severely affected were the eastern districts of Ampara, Batticaloa, Polonnaruwa, Trincomalee and the north-central district of Anuradhapura, which account for more than 1.2 million tons of the country's rice harvest.
Rice experts warn that yields could also be low in areas that weren't directly affected by the flooding.