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ixty-year-old farmer Parmanto from Mojokerto village in Kedawung district, Sragen regency, Central Java, carefully scrutinizes the withered paddy crops at his farm, hoping that some rice can be salvaged.

At the end of the day, he is able to harvest less than half of his crops, largely due to the prolonged dry season that has hit many villages in the area.

“I have invested a lot [into the crops], but almost the entire harvest failed,” he said on Thursday.

“There has been no rain while irrigation stopped running in June,” added Parmanto, who owns a 6,400-square-meter paddy field.

Parmanto said he had spent Rp 6 million (US$453) on the harvest. Normally, he could earn up to Rp 14 million from his field, but can now only hope that he won’t suffer a huge loss.

Another farmer, Supri, was unable to salvage a single crop from his field.

“I think we can only use the dried crops to feed cattle,” he said.

Hundreds of hectares of paddy fields in the village began to suffer when the Botok reservoir dried up in July.

Farmers hoped irrigation would be able to provide enough water from Batu Jamus in Karanganyar regency, but in early August, water supply from the area also stopped.

Sragen Agriculture Agency head Eka Rini Mumpuni said the regency had seven reservoirs to irrigate 5,947 hectares of farms.

“There has been no rainfall at all for three months, and all the reservoirs are now empty,” she said.

In Sukoharjo regency, also in Central Java, owners of more than 7,000 ha of farm land are bracing for failed crops, while 2,000 ha of paddy fields in Karanganyar may face a similar predicament.

Farmers have called for the delay of a planned maintenance on Colo dam, which would temporary terminate the dam’s operations, in a desperate bid to save their crops.

“We beg that the [maintenance] is postponed, at least until harvest time,” said Sarjanto, chairman of the Association of Farmers Using Colo Dam.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) recorded that as of Sunday, more than 2,726 villages across Java, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) were affected by drought, leaving around 3.9 million citizens in dire need of clean water.

The extreme weather is also affecting at least 56,334 ha of agricultural land and has resulted in failed crops in almost 30 percent of those areas. In West Java, at least 496 villages in 176 districts have suffered from water scarcity and failed crops.

“We hope the dry season ends in September,” West Java governor Ahmad Heryawan said on Wednesday.

Eight regions in the province have declared a drought emergency, namely Ciamis, Cianjur, Indramayu, Karawang, Kuningan and Sukabumi, as well as the cities of Banjar and Tasikmalaya.

Heryawan added that rice supplies were affected, thought not significantly, saying: “We have distributed water pumps to affected farmers, so they can mitigate the problem by pumping water from nearby rivers.”

A total of 936,328 people in the province are affected by drought, according to West Java Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) head Dicky Saromi.

Marsini, a resident of Cihaurgeulis, Bandung, said she had to ask for water from neighbors who owned wells. Syukur, a well maker from Sumedang, West Java, said he had been overwhelmed by increasing orders from residents to dig wells.

In East Java, the drought has affected 422 villages in 23 regencies and cities.