Adding Rice Farmers to the Rio+20 Agenda

Inter Press Service: The year 2011 was one of extremes for the small Sri Lankan village of Verugal. Lying on the island's Northeastern coast, Verugal began the year with incessant rainfall. Between January and February of 2011, the East coast received a year's worth of rain, which destroyed over 7,000 hectares of rice crops in Verugal and about 17 percent of the country's annual rice harvest. Some villages were cut off for weeks on end. "I was working in a life jacket for over two weeks," said Ponnabalam Thanesvaran,...

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