The country's agriculture ministry has proposed setting up a factory to produce cheap guns for the farmers to protect their crops from wild animals and other dangers.

But environmentalists say this will simply encourage farmers to kill wild animals rather than looking for other ways to protect their crops.

A spokesman for the Elephant Conservation Trust said 20 animals from an estimated population of 4,000 had been killed in the past two months.

Farmers' concern

He believed the numbers would be far greater if guns were available freely and cheaply.

Elephants are a major problem for Sri Lankan farmers.

They destroy large areas of crops in their search for food and have been known to kill humans.

But environmentalists say farmers should be encouraged to protect their fields using electric fences or by lighting fires to scare the animals.

They also want farmers to be compensated properly when crops are damaged.

Elephants forced out by fighting

The trust also pointed out that land originally inhabited by elephants was being taken over by large companies.

It says these are then planted with crops, such as sugar cane, which attract the animals.

The worst affected area is Anaradhapura, near Sri Lanka's conflict zone, where herds of elephants driven south by the fighting regularly destroy cultivated areas.