DHAKA, Wednesday 11 August 2010 (AFP) - Farmers in a parched district of northern Bangladesh are marrying off frogs in a desperate bid to bring on monsoon rains and protect their crops, local officials said Wednesday.

Bangladesh suffered its driest July in decades, prompting farmers to turn to the centuries-old rain-making ritual of celebrating frog marriages, officials say.

"There have been lot of frog marriages as there has been hardly any rainfall here even though it's monsoon season," Sadullahpur district government administrator Ariful Haq said.

At a frog wedding in Ramchandrapur village, 300 villagers dressed in their best clothes attended the festivities, said Tajul Islam, who was at the wedding.

"The frog bride and groom are highly decorated with a red streak of colour on their forehead and carried in a special basket to a banana-leaf stage," he said.

"Villagers sing songs, make offerings of rice and grass, then after the ceremony the married frogs are released in the village pond," he said, adding that all the village children then got traditional sweets.

Monsoon rains normally sweep Bangladesh from June to September, with the country receiving more than 75 percent of its annual rainfall during this period.

In July, usually the wettest month of the year, Bangladesh received 36 percent less rain than last year, said Shah Alam, deputy chief of the weather department.

"The rainfall in July was the lowest in the last three decades," he said.

Scientists say Bangladesh is one of the countries worst hit by the effects of climate change with extreme weather conditions such as drought and flooding likely to increase in future.

"The situation is horrible. The farmers hardly have enough water to plant paddy crops. The water bodies have dried up," Sadullahpur district government administrator Haq said.