Rice without rain / by Minfong Ho.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Another dry season -- another silent harvest! The parched yellow fields outside the village where seventeen-year-old Jinda lives are her family's only source of income. How can the rain-starved crop produce enough rice to feed them, much less pay the rent? Perhaps the recently arrived young strangers from the city are right about the need for centuries-old traditions to change. At least when she listens to their talk, she feels the stirrings of hope...

Hesitantly, Jinga grows to trust the outsiders. There is Sri, who brings with her life-saving medicines and knowledge of how to use them. And there is Ned, who talks of taking charge of one's own destiny, and fighting those who would stand in the way. It is almost too late when Jinda realizes that her trust is misplaced -- that to Sri and Ned their cause is more important than the lives it would affect. Against a vividly evoked backdrop of rural and urban Thailand, Jinda heroically faces the challenges of holding on to who she is as the world around her revolves in what seems to be never-ending change.