Bangkok  - Myanmar needs to plant its wet season rice crop in the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy Delta by the end of June or will face severe rice shortages late this year, a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official warned Friday.

"Time is running out, we are working against the clock," FAO spokesman Diderik de Vleschauwer said.

Without the wet season crop food security will be jeopardised into 2009, he said.

Cyclone Nargis, which brought a surge of salt water inland in Myanmar's central coast on May 2-3, did the most damage in the delta which is the country's "rice bowl" producing about 65 per cent of its annual rice crop.

Farmers had harvested the smaller winter crop in March and April but the cyclone washed away much those stockpiles. Farmers had not yet started to plant the main monsoon crop but need to get started, he said.

"We think the damage done this year by the cyclone is worse than what happened in 2004 by the tsunami," Vleschauwer said.

Rice stocks were destroyed, planting seeds washed away and they have no capital to buy new seeds, said the FAO. Livestock, a major source for fertilizer, were also destroyed.

The salt water that remains in the delta and has settled into the soil can be dealt with by using salt water resistant seeds for the current planting, but Myanmar will need help buying the seeds and fertilizer, Vleschauwer said.

Earlier this week the Myanmar government told the FAO it will need about 243 million dollars to purchase rice seeds, fertilizers and to rehabilitate paddy embarkments and irrigation systems in the Irrawaddy Delta to ready it for the main rice crop in the monsoon season, which has already started.

Vleschauwer said the FAO would be conducting its own assessment of the amount of aid needed in the coming week and was likely to issue an international appeal within the next three weeks. (dpa)