Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project Helped Sri Lanka’s Smallholder Farmers Weather the COVID-19 Pandemic
Format
The Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP), which began in 2019 to improve productivity and climate resilience of smallholder agriculture in Sri Lanka, has played a key role in the government’s COVID-19 relief and recovery initiatives. The COVID crisis hit the agriculture sector particularly hard, with far-reaching consequences for food security and farmer’s livelihoods. In 2020, the project invested $1.72 million in five programs that prioritized high-value food crops critical for food security and income generation, benefitting 19,923 farm families.
Challenge
Since March 2020, COVID-19 has had a massive impact on Sri Lanka’s national economy in general and the agriculture sector in particular with far-reaching consequences for food supplies, incomes, livelihoods and welfare. Although the full costs are still being reckoned, it was clear th