Bangkok - Cyclone-damaged Myanmar needs an estimated 32 million dollars in immediate emergency aid to help 52,000 farming families plant their rice this rainy season, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Wednesday.

"Time is not on our side," said Hiroyuki Konuma, FAO Regional director for Asia-Pacific. "The window is narrow to meet the seasonal deadline for the monsoon season cropping."

Myanmar's fertile Irrawaddy Delta, the country's traditional rice bowl, was hit by Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3, which brought with it tidal waves that submerged up to 780,000 hectares of land and left at least 130,000 dead or missing.

An accurate estimate of the cyclone's damage to Myanmar's rice crop has been provided this week by the FAO, which recently concluded a needs assessment mission to the Irrawaddy delta with eight FAO experts accompanied by counterparts from the Myanmar government.

"We are talking roughly about 183,000 hectares of paddy land that could be lost for this production season, or roughly half a million metric tons of paddy," said Albert Lieberg, who headed the FAO needs assessment team.

The estimated shortfall is considerably lower than the government's initial estimate of 3 million tons. The Irrawaddy delta provides about 65 per cent of Myanmar's rice needs.

Should the international community fail to supply funding for the emergency package designed by FAO to assist the 52,000 farming families who own the 183,000 hectares of paddy land, a production shortfall of 500,000 tons of paddy can be anticipated in 2008 which could lead to severe food shortages or reliance on foreign food aid, Lieberg warned.

"But if the programme is implemented, then we will be able to make it," he told a press conference in Bangkok.

The FAO has pinpointed another 100,000 landless farmers in the cyclone-affected areas of the Irrawaddy who will also need emergency assistance as they have lost their means of employment.

The United Nations agency estimates that another 51 million dollars in disaster aid will be needed from the international community to go toward rehabilitation of agriculture, fisheries and forestry in the Irrawaddy over the next two years.

Cyclone Nargis, the worst natural disaster to hit Myanmar in recent history, killed an estimated 30,000 people working in the fisheries sector and destroyed thousands of fishing boats, said the FAO.

New boats will need to be brought in as part of an emergency package, and the boat-building industry will need to be rehabilitated as part of the long-term package.

The cyclone also destroyed about 14,000 hectares of mangrove forest, although mangrove destruction has gone unmonitored in the delta for the past 40 years, making a proper assessment of the environmental damage of the cyclone difficult, said Lieberg.

The FAO expert claimed to have faced no restrictions in carrying out their assessment mission, which took them to many remoter areas in the Irrawaddy.

"During our work... we had total freedom of manoeuvre," claimed Lieberg.

Myanmar's ruling junta was heavily criticized for restricting the entry of foreign disaster experts to the cyclone-struck areas in the Irrawaddy during the first weeks of the catastrophe, but they appeared to loosen up after a national referendum was held on May 25. The vote had preoccupied the generals and apparently taken priority over relief activities. (dpa)