By Marianne Landzettel South Asia Editor, BBC World Service

	Seasonal vegetables like carrots and beans have become very expensive

More rain is forecast for the coming days.

Rice crops would normally have been ready to harvest from the end of February through to mid March, but the ministry of agriculture believes that up to ninety percent of rice and other grains like millet under cultivation across the country have now been lost due to the floods.

On Sunday Minister Mahinda Amaraweera told BBC Sandeshaya that farmers could not expect any compensation from the government, because the devastation was far too extensive.

Dairy farmers

Very few of the estimated one million farmers in Sri Lanka who grow rice - most of them smallholders - have insurance, as premiums are high and payouts are patchy.

	Livestock and dairy farmers have also been hit as a result of floods

Experts predict shortages of staple foodstuffs like rice within a few weeks.

Vegetable production has also been severely hit.

The central province around Nuwara Eliya is Sri Lanka's most important vegetable-growing region and much land there has been washed away or buried under mud slides.

Seasonal vegetables like carrots, beans and aubergines are in short supply in the markets and have become very expensive.

Food prices in Sri Lanka were at a record high before the floods, but now are expected to rise further.

Livestock and dairy farmers have also been hit.

Many animals in the low lying, eastern province drowned when huge water reservoirs burst their banks.

Dairy farmers in other areas are feeling the effects of the floods too: fodder crops cannot be harvested and the lack of fodder is having an impact on milk production which has gone down considerably.