A prominent Jaffna based civil society activist Mylvaganam Sooriasegaram has noted that the Thai pongal festival for 2021 is a grim one for the country’s farmers. Posting on social media Sooriasegaram said though Thai Pongal is a harvest festival there is nothing to harvest for farmers in Sri Lanka this season.
He noted that entire crops have been destroyed by the recent unprecedented rain and flood.
“I understand the harvest is going to be zero or near zero. It is a tragedy indeed caused by climate change” he added. “So it is a grim Thai Pongal for all the farmers in Sri Lanka”.
Therefore Sooriasegaram called on the community to share what they have with the country’s farmers on this occasion.
“They fed us all these years but now they can’t feed us and they can’t even feed themselves.
So we have to share what we have with them. Our survival depends on their survival” he said.
