Anthropology of Global Climate Urgency
Doctoral Network
Climate urgency and ‘smart’ agriculture
Sri Lankan River Basins, Horowpothana region.
Fieldwork update by Avishka Sendanayake - March 2025
My fieldwork is based in a rural agricultural village called Pattiyawala in the Horowpothana Divisional Secretariat of the Anuradhapura District. It is in the North Central Province. The climate in this region is dry, with two seasons: the Yala Kanna being the dry period (May to August) and Maha Kanna (September to March) being the Northeast monsoon period. The closest town to Pattiyawala is the Horowpothana town. There is only a gravel road to the village and no public transport. The majority of the landscape is occupied by paddy fields, as it is the main crop cultivated in this area. There are several protected areas managed by the Department of Forest Conservation and the Department of Wildlife Conservation. Biodiversity is relatively high. The closest river to my field location is the ‘Yan Oya,’ a tributary of the river found only a few kilometres from the village. There is another stream known as ‘Sellugoya’ that is the closest to the village. However, the village does not depend on these two tributaries for water. The village has access to two man-made tanks, known as Attulawewa and Pattiyawala Wewa. These are known to be ancient tanks that date back a millennia, with significant periods of deterioration and rehabilitation. The village hosts about 50 households, a relatively smaller village in comparison to their neighbours. The majority of the residents are related. Demographically, this is a Sinhalese Buddhist village. There is a small temple in the village next to the tank. There are two schools in the neighbouring villages; all the kids attend either of these two schools.
The history of Sri Lanka boasts a great hydraulic civilisation capable of ensuring year-round agriculture through a uniquely curated water management system called the Tank Cascade System in the North Central Province, dry zone region. The term “cascade” is defined as ‘a connected series of village irrigation tanks organised within a micro- (or meso-) catchment of the dry zone landscape, storing, conveying, and utilising water from an ephemeral rivulet.’ These cascades were connected to the rivers, but the disruption of the water flow was not significant enough to create negative consequences for the ecosystems in the region. The traditional management of these tanks ensured their sustainability for centuries. However, this was disrupted during colonialism and the postcolonial green revolution, isolating the tanks and deteriorating the sustainable design of the cascade systems. These tanks are crucial for the agricultural practices in the region, as it has traditionally been the centrepiece for ritualistic and religious practices related to cultivation. Agriculture remains to be the main form of livelihood for most people in my field location, which is the Anuradhapura district. While there are a variety of crops that are cultivated in the Horowpothana Divisional Secretariat, paddy cultivation is still the favoured crop variety by all farmers. As paddy cultivation is a water-intensive crop, climate plays a significant role in the lifecycle of the plant
In recent years, Horowpothana was identified as a highly vulnerable and sensitive area for climate change impacts. Pattiyawala village experiences floods, droughts, and monsoon seasonal changes more frequently with higher intensity than before. Due to these reasons, two of the larger climate projects that Sri Lanka was awarded directed several interventions to this area. The two projects were the Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) funded by the World Bank Group, and the other is the Climate Resilient Integrated Water Management Project (CRIWMP) funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Many of the interventions were focused on adaptation, and this entailed climate ‘smart’ agriculture awareness. These projects also aimed at rehabilitating the cascade systems, which involves rehabilitating existing village tanks and tracing and reconstructing ancient tanks. My research aims to investigate and document the discourses of climate urgency produced under the framework of climate-smart agriculture in rural Sri Lanka. Another objective is to document how local farmers, NGOs, public officials, politicians, and agro-entrepreneurs assume, adapt, resist, and counterbalance the new expertise and technologies forged in the infrastructure of micro-projects of climate-resilient development. Moreover, analyse the popular culture vocabularies mobilised under the pressure of climate urgency in a postcolonial setting largely affected by the romance of a pure ancestral ‘Sinhala rural community.’
I have conducted over 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Sri Lanka. I presently live with a widowed woman farmer in Pattiyawala, Horowpothana. She cultivates a variety of crops mostly by herself and on occasion hires day labourers for field activities that are too difficult for her to manage. One of her daughter’s visits occasionally to assist her when she cannot find help. She has approximately 4 acres of land; the rest of the land she inherited was divided amongst her four children. For the first three months (May to July), I followed her throughout her daily routine, which varies from time to time, depending on the crops and the cultivation stage. I assisted her with various tasks such as sowing, weeding, and harvesting. This participatory mode of ethnography served me well, as many other villagers/farmers approached me during these activities and engaged in deep conversations. Some of the day labourers working alongside me were quite surprised that I wanted to learn their way of life, as their perceptions of the city are quite utopian.
It was refreshing to see that both men and women were actively engaged in agricultural activities. When I initially arrived at the field in May of 2024, the Yala season had started, and farmers had already begun their cultivation cycle. My host had cultivated crops such as Rata kaju (Peanut earth nut), Mung ata (Green gram), Cowpea, and Udu (Black gram) in a 1-acre plot of land two blocks away from her home. When I first visited the plot, the saplings of the variety of crops she planted painted a beautiful scenery that reminded me of a rural village in Sri Lanka. The crops were planted in rows and sections within the plot, and I initially could not identify the types of crops, but as the days passed by, I noticed the distinct leaf structures, and I learnt to use this to identify the types of crops. Not everyone cultivates paddy during this season, but my host and several others had cultivated the paddy lands under the ‘Attulawewa’ tank. As I actively engaged in agricultural activities alongside my host, she taught me all the stages of paddy cultivation associated with the village tank in Pattiyawala.
During Yala Kanna, wild elephants and other animals can cross uncultivated lands looking for food and water, both of which can be found on paddy fields. As most of these animals roam at night, farmers have a traditional strategy to stay awake throughout the night guarding the paddy by creating temporary wooden shacks on trees or on higher ground. It is called “Pal Rakinawa.” This form of night guard is decided upon a roster system, so my host was assigned duty four times within the span of one month. Paddy fields are only guarded during the last month and a half before harvest. I joined my host on three occasions to guard the paddy fields; it was a surreal experience.
My host and I were battling the elements as we stayed in a wooden shack with a few wooden slabs as a makeshift resting place. We lit a fire to indicate our presence but also to keep us warm and to keep the mosquitos away. I recall feeling humbled as my surroundings served as a reminder of our singular existence within the vast interconnected ecosystem. The celestial night sky serves as our compass; the paddy fields before me provide sustenance and hydration, while the surrounding canals, streams, and reservoir constitute our vital lifeline. There is a strong disconnection between human and wildlife in Pattiyawala; conventional wisdom has been dissipated throughout time, and in recent years, the role of the biodiversity have been supplanted with harmful pesticides and fertilisers to enable large scale paddy cultivation. There is a heavy dependence on pesticides and fertiliser in this region, which is considered to be a reason for the heightened illnesses in children and senior members of the community
The last four months (Oct 2024 to Jan 2025), I returned to the field from a brief hiatus of two months in Italy, as the Maha Kanna was starting. It was easier to assimilate into the field this time to start collecting data and to conduct a few structured interviews with the villagers, as I had built the necessary relationships. I also conducted several interviews with government officials in the area to better understand agricultural activities, resource management, and climate information dissemination. During Maha Kanna, farmers cultivate most of their lands with paddy, even the lands that are not under the village tank systems, as they rely solely on rainfall. Anywhere you travel in the dry zone during the Maha Kanna, all you observe as far as the eye can see are lush green paddy fields. I enjoy the shades of green that seasonally change in this region; it varies from light (almost luminous green) paddy fields to shrubs and trees that are shades of dark green. My host also cultivated paddy and nuts. However, due to a significant delay of the monsoon, the paddy cultivation began almost two months later for most of the farmers in Pattiyawala. During the first flooding event that occurred in the village, not many people had started paddy cultivation, but during the second flooding event, which took place in January 2025, several farmers lost their recently cultivated paddy lands. There are many layers as to why the flooding is severe and prevalent in this village, but that is currently being analyzed.
It is imperative to engage with the farming communities in Sri Lanka to understand their experiences on how they perceive climate change and if there is a sense of urgency to adapt to a changing climate and if so, how they would achieve that with ancient knowledge and modern technological advances in the fields of agriculture. I have been utilizing both observatory and participatory forms of ethnography as they create the best opportunities to collect information. By engaging in everyday agricultural activities with the host farmer I am living with, I was able to engage in a more meaningful exchange of ideas and perceptions.
It is also important to engage with other stakeholders and decision-makers in the agriculture sector to investigate the level of integration of ongoing agriculture project interventions in long-term planning within the agriculture sector. Moreover to understand the success of climate project interventions at the ground level.
Avishka Sendanayake