Sri Lanka is giving government officials an extra day off per week to encourage them to grow food amid fears of food shortages.
The country has around one million public sector employees.
The island state with around 22 million inhabitants is facing the worst economic crisis in more than 70 years.
Sri Lanka is struggling to pay for essential imports such as food, fuel and medicines as it faces a serious foreign currency shortage.
Late Monday, the government approved a proposal that public sector workers would be given furlough every Friday for the next three months.
The decision was partly to help workers who are struggling to get to work due to fuel shortages and to encourage them to grow fruit and vegetables to feed themselves and their families.
“It seems appropriate to grant government officials one working day leave per week and to provide them with the necessary facilities to engage in farming activities in their backyards or elsewhere in order to solve the food shortages that are expected in the future,” the said government in a statement on its online news portal.
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Also on Monday, the United States said it was ready to help Sri Lanka.
After a phone call with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the US was “ready to work with Sri Lanka”.
Earlier this month, Mr Wickremesinghe said the country needed at least $5bn (£4.15bn) this year to pay for key imports.
The government is negotiating an economic stimulus package, and an IMF delegation is due to arrive in the capital, Colombo, next Monday.
The depreciation of the Sri Lankan rupee, rising global commodity prices and a now-lifted ban on chemical fertilizers helped annual food prices rise more than 57% in April.
Late last month, the country’s agriculture minister, Mahinda Amaraweera, urged farmers to plant more rice, saying “it is clear that the food situation is getting worse”.
“We call on all farmers to enter their fields and plant rice in the next five to ten days [rice],” he added.
At the same time, the government increased taxes to prop up its finances.
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