Solution Exchange on SRI

Query: Food and Livelihood Security through SRI in Chhattisgarh - Experiences; Advice

I work with PRADAN. Overwhelmed by the success of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method of rice cultivation in various parts of our country we have thought of spreading the technology to the Bastar and Northern hilly regions of Chhattisgarh in partnership with other NGOs essentially to address the food security of poor farmers. Our experience has shown that once food security is ensured then both farm and non-farm based livelihoods can be promoted with the target families otherwise they keep looking for wage employment and are not in a position to optimally utilise their own natural resources.

Further, as the return from agriculture is so low that it does not motivate the farmer to invest in improving the productivity of their land. On an average a farmer holds about half a hectare of paddy land in this area from which they get about one ton of paddy under rainfed conditions by following traditional package of practices and with very low out of pocket investments. The average requirement of paddy to make a family food secure in this region is 2.4 tonnes.

By adopting SRI, the paddy yields can go up from 1-2 tonnes per ha to 8-10 tonnes per ha. However, some of the challenges for SRI in the region include:

· Under rainfed conditions, it is difficult to ensure timely transplantation and alternate drying and wetting of the land as suggested in SRI practice

· Maintaining the soil health and sustaining the yield levels, after 3–4 years of repeated usage of SRI method in the same plot

To carry out the initiative successfully in the Bastar and northern hilly regions of Chhattisgarh, I am looking forward to member’s inputs on:

· Which package of practices for SRI, would best suit the farmers of this region?

· What are the different organic practices that are replicable and scalable for sustained yields? Also, can farmers completely do away with chemical fertilizers and pesticides?

· What are the low cost implements best suited for transplantation and weeding and how can the use of these be upscaled?

· A large number of farmers here go for broadcasting the seeds in upland and medium upland, so what SRI practices can be incorporated into this for significantly increasing the yield?

· Experiences of members in SRI with indigenous varieties and yield levels that have been achieved

1. Arun Jindal, Society for Sustainable Development (SSD), Karauli, Rajasthan

4. Himanshu Thakkar, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, New Delhi

5. K. K. Datta, National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi

The System for Rice Intensification/Systemic Rice Intensification (SRI) method of rice cultivation ensures higher yields as well as many other benefits. These are reduced cost of cultivation due to less water and labour requirement; quicker maturity period; resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses; more milling percentage etc. Discussing the various challenges involved in SRI method of cultivation under rainfed conditions, members advised formulating suitable methodologies for ‘rainfed SRI’ by synthesizing the experiences of practitioners under similar situations so as to help large scale promotion of SRI in areas like Chhattisgarh.

Respondents explained that the challenge starts with water management, since it requires control. Under rainfed conditions, it is difficult to ensure timely transplantation and alternate drying and wetting of the land as suggested in SRI practice. To overcome this particular challenge of doing SRI under rainfed farming, they opined, that modifications need to be made in the current protocol of SRI developed by Fr. Henri de Laulanie, in Madagascar over 25 years ago under irrigated conditions.

To ensure timely transplantation in ‘rainfed SRI’, members shared the strategy developed in West Bengal, which suggests establishing three nurseries, staggered in timing each about ten days apart thus providing about a six week window of opportunity to utilize proper young seedlings (5-15 days) for transplanting according to monsoon rains. However using this strategy means that seed saving is only 70%, as against 90% in SRI and farmers have to be convinced about sacrificing two nurseries,. Yet the proponents of this strategy believe that overall yield benefit may trigger acceptance of this strategy.

Another strategy for timely planting suggested is sowing direct sprouted seeds in the main field after making marks at 25x25 cm spacing. The broadcast method is also an option, which calls for thinning 3-4 weeks after germination to reduce plant density, as was done in northeast Thailand. Farmers need to decide between ‘direct seeded’ vs. ‘transplantation’ SRI based on the plot size and availability of labour. Respondents felt that in general the ‘direct seeded version’ is a good choice for areas over one Ha, and highlighted an experience from Sri Lanka where the yields from SRI and conventional methods were comparable.

Noting that in ‘rainfed SRI’ there is no possibility for ‘water control,’ as water management/retention is dependent on topography, rainfall patterns, soil water holding capacities, etc., discussants advised not to hold water in the field for too long. To drain-out excess water, the members suggested creating level fields, with drainage channel around the field. Members also felt that in rainfed cultivation it is important to ‘grow roots’ rather than focusing on ‘growing plants’, and suggested frequent inspection of roots. Another point underlined was the importance of soil management, which plays a big role in water management.

Discussing the challenges involved in maintaining soil health and sustaining yield levels, respondents explained one key to soil health is ‘Organic Matter (OM)’. Citing field experiences from Madagascar, members recommended incorporating OM (mainly paddy straw) into soil to increase and sustain yields. Another suggestion, as part of a sustainable SRI strategy to enhance soil OM, was to cultivate leguminous plants like Sesbania, Glircidia, etc. which grow fast and have the added advantage of containing Nitrogen. Discussants also mentioned the practice of broadcasting Mungbean in the row spaces, and incorporating (35 days after sowing), in direct seeded SRI as done by farmers in the northeastern part of Thailand.

Looking at the specific situation of farmers in Bastar and Northern hilly regions of Chhattisgarh, discussants pointed out that the majority do not use chemicals in paddy cultivation and thus there is no need to introduce chemical fertilizers with SRI. At the same time, they noted that following SRI does not necessarily mean it is organic, because farmers often use chemical fertilization on less fertile soil. Further, members highlighted that ‘compost’, if utilized well and abundantly, gives yields that generally out-perform areas where chemical fertilizers are utilized. Finally, they stressed the point of ‘feeding’ the soil so it can ‘feed’ the plant.

Respondents also mentioned that if farmers practice SRI crop management effectively, under most conditions, there is not enough loss due to pests and/or diseases to justify the use of agrochemicals.

In addition, members pointed out that some local rice varieties respond very well to the SRI method, and reiterated the need to try out the various indigenous varieties. Although the yield levels of indigenous varieties did not match with those from improved varieties of paddy under SRI in an evaluation study in Sri Lanka, the market prices made it profitable. As such, the farmers need to look at land, labour, water and financial productivity factors, not just yield, members noted.

Finally, responding to the question regarding the ideal ‘package of practice’ for farmers in the Bastar region, discussants advised creating a ‘combination of practices’, which optimize the range of recommended practices for local conditions, including age of the seedling, spacing, plants per hill, water management, number of weeding and nutrient management. Moreover, they advocated developing a set of local practices, based on seasonal conditions, soil, water availability, local varieties, etc., in a participatory manner involving scientists, practitioners and farmers.

Overall, members felt SRI has many advantages but requires a lot of precision and knowledge to effectively manage and address the various challenges. They concluded by noting that across the world, SRI has worked well in irrigated areas and has been successfully attempted in many rainfed places as well, thus offering potential lessons for farmers in Chhattisgarh to draw from.

SRI Cropping as per Rainfall Pattern, Purulia District (from Norman Uphoff, Cornell University, New York, USA)

The farmers who adopted SRI had an average productivity as high as 7.7 tons/hectare in spite of high incidences of disease and pest attacks coupled with dry spells, both during the transplanting and grain-filling stages. The key to the success was adapting cropping as per the rainfall pattern, and determing spacing on the basis of time of transplantation and use of indigenous varieties. Read more

Farmers Witness Substantial Increase in Paddy Yield through SRI, Balasundaram Village, Palani Taluk, Dindigul District (from Raj Ganguly, Consultant, New Delhi)

Earlier farmers were producing maize and on the convincing by State Agriculture Department are now yielding more with less inputs - seeds, water, chemicals, labour. Farmers are now cultivating rice using using the SRI principles and have harvested a record output of 14.27 tonnes of paddy from one hectare of land, double what they used to produce. Growing numbers of farmers in this region are now taking up SRI. Read more

Women Farmers do Wonders with SRI, Endiyur (from Raj Ganguly, Consultant, New Delhi *)

Some women farmers convinced their families to give them part of their family's land to try out SRI method of rice cultivation, which their families did after much reluctance. The women farmers now are proudly announcing their yield of 23.5 bags of paddy in half acre against the 29 bags in one acre of land that produced paddy in the usual way. Now their families are convinced of SRI and plan to dedicate their entire land to SRI method of paddy cultivation. Read more

In an experimental project, SRI was cultivated under two water regimes - just-moist (JM) soil and the traditional farmers’ practice of flooding the land. JM produced similar rice yield with less supplementary irrigation. Cultivating SRI and mung bean in combination proved to be the best among all tested bean intercropping systems, providing high foliage and ground cover as green mulch for the rice crop grown under SRI system of management. Read more

In the late 1990s twenty-eight farmers introduced the SRI method of rice production in rain-fed areas of the country. An average landholding of 1.57 ha yielded 5 tons rice per ha, exceeding the national average for rain-fed areas of 1.65 - 1.8 tons per ha. Since 2001, around 500 farmers have adopted SRI. Data covering 393 of these farmers showed that close to half of the farmers harvested over 3.0 T rice a ha. Around 57 got more than 5.0 T, while three farmers got more than 10 T per ha. Read more

Mentions that changing the way that rice plants, soil, water and nutrients are managed through SRI has an obvious and dramatic effects on yield

Reports that Tamil Nadu is seeing a substantial growth in the amount of paddy area under SRI, which has helped to nearly double paddy output from a unit of land

Provides information on the multimedia toolkit developed by the WB to help disseminate information to people who may be interested in learning more about SRI

Mentions two striking features of the SRI cultivation in Tripura- the scale of operations with large stretches of contiguous plots and strong policy, field support from the Department of Agriculture

Article; by Doraiswamy, JalaSpandana, South India Farmers Organisation for Water Management; Dams, River and People; 2005

Talks about the training programme evolved by JalaSpandana that teaches farmers all about the SRI cultivation techniques

Writes on the success of SRI cultivation among 20 women farmers in the region using SRI method of cultivation giving bumper crops

Increasing Water Use Efficiency by Using Mulch under SRI (System of Rice Intensification) Management Practices in Northeast Thailand (from Prabhat Kumar, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand)

Report; by Prof. V. M. Salokhe, Dr. Prabhat Kumar and Abha Mishra; Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and Thai Education Foundation (TEF); Bangkok, Thailand; January 2007

Presents effect of different water regimes on Rice Yield under SRI (System of Rice Intensification) vs. Farmer’s Management Practices

Report; by A. Irshad Ahamed, W.G.Somaratne and Mal Simmons; Oxfam Australia; November 2007

Documents findings of a farmer-based research project that compared the yields from farmers using the SRI approach with those using the conventional production methods used in Sri Lanka

Reports on the sustained improvements in paddy cultivation and experiences facilitating the adoption by farmers of a SRI package of practices

Report; Centre for World Solidarity (CWS), Orissa Resource Centre, Bhubaneswar and Xavier Institute of Management; Orissa; 2007

Presents extensive research findings on SRI across India, outlining field level experiences implementing it along with the various constraints, challenges and benefits

System of Rice Intensification in India - Innovation History and Institutional Challenges

Report; by Dr. C. Shambu Prasad; Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar; WWF Project Dialogue on Water, Food and Environment, Hyderabad; 2006

Looks into the regions’ experience with SRI, and compares and contrasts them in order to gather learnings and highlight cross-learning opportunities for SRI in India.

Report; JalaSpandana, South India Farmers Organisation for Water Management; Bangalore; 2007

Details the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method of paddy cultivation carried out in Andhra Pradesh, and highlights different approaches experimented with when using SRI

Describes the System of Rice Cultivation (SRI) system and how it requires half the water needed against the conventional rice cultivation

Provides information on Cambodia's innovative System of Intensification & Diversification of rice production that maximizes yields by diversifying rice-based farming systems in rain-fed lowlands

Reports on farmers in Nepal to reap huge benefits from an ingenious method of rice cultivation

Provides basic information on SRI cultivation, including that it requires less water and less money, while giving greater yields and benefiting small and marginal farmers

Informs on the basics of SRI cultivation, provides information on its use in different states, policy initiatives in Andhra Pradesh and few tips on the Dos and Don'ts of SRI

System of Rice Intensification (SRI), South Asia Network on dams, Rivers and People

Provide range of information links based on farmers' experiences of SRI nationally and internationally

System of Rice Intensification (SRI), Watershed Support Services and Activities Network

Shares newsletter on SRI and documents various case studies on the experiences of using SRI method of Rice Cultivation across India

Blogspot proving information on the various SRI learning alliance events, discussions and their outcomes, providing in depth information on SRI practices across the world

Provides information on the various SRI practices in India and documents various research outputs, presentations and newsletters on SRI

The System of Rice Intensification-SRI, Association Tefy Saina, Antanarivo, Madagascar and the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development, Thailand

Contains extensive information on SRI from its origin, methodology, advantages, research papers and articles on SRI

Systemic Rice Intensification (SRI), from Mahtab S.Bamji, Dangoria Charitable Trust, Hyderabad (Experiences). Food and Nutrition Security Community, Solution Exchange India, Issued 19 May 2008

Discusses introduction of SRI approach for rice cultivation, shares experiences with the system, and elaborates on locale specific strategies and ways to propagate it among farmers.

*Offline Contribution

Thanks Manas for raising a timely and useful query. We at SSD also interested to know some of the answers of the questions you raised. SSD also working in medium upland area with the farmers and also planning to promote SRI methods in our field area.

Farmers in Karauli also dependent on rainwater for rice cultivation, but traditionally these farmers store rain water in upland and use water when monsoon is not on time. In this way farmers are producing Basmati rice in the field. We have supported more than 1000 farmers to repair and construct pokhers in the project villages with support from Aga Khan Foundation, Intercooperation, CASA and UNDP-SGP-CEE. Now a days these farmers growing paddy in drought period.

Recently there was a workshop of SRI practitioners and facilitators at Xavier Institute of Management (XIM) Bhubaneswar on 8 – 9 December 08.

Prof Norman Uphoff addressed this workshop on world wise experience of SRI. He mentioned some farmers are using 4 days old seedlings. It is really a different story altogether, the way our farmers look at the paddy crop and SRI method is completely different. A film on organic means of SRI cultivation was also released, which speaks about all organic package of practices.

Under rainfed conditions, it is difficult to ensure timely transplantation and alternate drying and wetting of the land as suggested in SRI practice.

Transplanting of seedlings can be done of 4 days old seedlings to 12 days old seedlings, even one can go for 15-18 days old also, if timely rain is not available. Even direct sprouted seeds can be put in the main field after making necessary marks/ spots of 25x25cm.

There is no other way than creating a level field and creating a drainage channel around the field to drain out excess water and irrigate it alternately.

Maintaining the soil health and sustaining the yield levels, after 3–4 years of repeated usage of SRI method in the same plot.

For maintaining soil health, one has to go for summer ploughing, dhaincha cultivation and incorporation of it at 45 days old, use vermicompost , vermin-wash and most importantly go for 3-4 times weeding by manual weeder (there are different types of weeder available including a battery operated one)

Experiences of members in SRI with indigenous varieties and yield levels that have been achieved

Please see the film (Muthae Dhanara Karamati) developed by Samabhav, Nayagarh to find answers. The copy of the film can be also collected from Dr. Shambu, XIMB

System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method not only ensures higher yield but it’s other useful attributes are also significant:

· Reduced cost of production; reported from various countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and India

· Works well with both Hybrid and High Yielding varieties on one hand with traditional varieties on the other

· Although SRI is thought to be labour intensive but slowly the experiences are emerging that in the long run it is becoming labour saving

A comprehensive document on SRI, enumerating all the above mentioned attributes with practical references along with some other useful links is provided for reference:

Tamil Nadu is seeing a substantial growth in paddy area under SRI (System of Rice Intensification), which has helped to nearly double paddy output from a unit of land. The area under SRI is about 3.24 lakh ha and growing against 2.75 lakh hectares last year, out of total paddy acreage of 21.5 lakh ha in Tamil Nadu. (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/12/17/stories/2008121750401500.htm)

I believe SRI has great potential even under climate change scenarios and it needs to be promoted and further developed with accruing farmers’ experiences from different regions.

I understand that a large proportion of the farmers in that region already do not use chemicals in their paddy cultivation, so I see no need to introduce these there while advocating SRI. For those using some chemicals, I guess such use can be slowly reduced if the farmers feel comfortable after some initial exposure to SRI farms in their own area, which I guess would be the key first step.

SRI can also be used when paddy is cultivated by broadcast method, one way to ensure reduced plant density would be to thin out the same once the plants have reached healthy state in say 3-4 weeks after germination. In such method, though the use of mechanical weeder would be difficult since the plants won't be in regular equi-distance rows. All this is of course by way of loud thinking.

The SRI section on our website could be seen at: http://www.sandrp.in/sri/ for detailed information about SRI in Andhra Pradesh and in India, visit the website of Watershed Support Services and Activities http://www.wassan.org/sri/

K. K. Datta, National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi

SRI has lot of advantages but real problem starts with irrigation, since it is to be controlled and asked as and when it needs. That creates the confusion at least on rainfed area where crop production is completely depends on rainfall which is erratic in nature. How it will be address is the real issues instead of its technicality.

Secondly, it requires lot of precession and knowledge to handle the 4-14 days seedlings. That kind of expertise needs to be addressed in the proper perspectives.

When I was working with PRADAN, we had tried SRI system of rice cultivation in Jharkhand region. Jharkhand being among drought prone areas, results were not very satisfactory there but in my opinion it can easily be done in Chhattisgarh as here rain is not a problem and most of the farmers are already involved in paddy cultivation. As far as efficacy of SRI is concerned, it is really overwhelming and there is no ifs and buts about the technique.

Good to hear that SRI is widely talked and also spreading rapidly in all corners of the country. Well, there are many ways – an open system like SRI can be seen and utilized. But, one aspects that could make it a better option than other would like in developing local practices based on the 4 principles (planting young seedling, wide spacing, water management (preferably aerobic fields) and use of organic matter). We should refrain making it a ‘package of practice’. This would mean that local adaption and adoption base done season, soil, water availability, variety preference – a better suited suit of practice should be developed involving farmers.

I could provide some ideas from our work in Northeast Thailand and experiences from Cambodia. In NE Thailand, we have used direct seeded SRI with 25x25 cm spacing with the onset of rain and used the row space to broadcast 8-10 Kg of Mungbean seeds, which was later incorporated (35 DAS). We could not control water as the crop was in rainy season, but we tried to drain out whenever there was heavy water in the field. Last week this crop was harvested with good yields (we are still busy calculating yields etc.) compared to normal farmers practice direct sown rice. Another site, we had transplanted SRI with wider spacing and younger seedling and again, in this case too, farmers found it very difficult to manage water. Despite this 30-40% more yields were obtained. We will analyze the data as we planted these in a proper statistical designs and regular data collection over season. But in general it worked well.

What I would like to suggest that – talk to scientists, farmers on parameters discussed in the first paragraph and then design simple field experiments, develop easy monitoring systems – thoroughly observe and analyze the data and then reach to a conclusion on best local practices. It will take time but results would be better and by doing these you could directly involve farmers, scientists etc. In our case we have used the FFS to involve farmers and also used the weekly agro-system analysis for the monitoring purposes. You may like to use this approach. What I like most that a platform like FFS is open end and with plan, one could use it well for farmers education process along with adapting and adopting socio-economic and bio-physical compatible practices for the community. And, once farmers are well versed, many more things could be tried and tested on a sustainable basis.

If you wish to discuss more on it in further details, me and my partner are willing to help and shape your future work (at least electronically).

Pradan, has been doing some of the most innovative and effective work on SRI under rainfed conditions since its team in Purulia district of West Bengal began working with the methods in 2002-2003, with just four farmers who were willing to give the methods a try. Since then the use has expanded to over 6,000 (and probably more, as many if not all of the methods have been taken up by farmers not directly involved in Pradan programs), and Pradan work with SRI has expanded into other depressed regions of Eastern India.

Under rainfed conditions, it is difficult to ensure timely transplantation and alternate drying and wetting of the land as suggested in SRI practice. This is the particular 'curse' of rainfed farming. Adjustments need to be made to take advantage of rainwater whenever it comes. When I met with Pradan staff in New Delhi just last week, I suggested that it get together all of the NGOs which are working with SRI methods under rainfed conditions to share experience and formulate a methodology for rainfed SRI that amends the current 'protocols' for irrigated rice production, which were developed by Fr. Henri de Laulanie in Madagascar over 25 years ago for similarly poor households but with different resource endowments.

Pradan has developed one ingenious strategy in West Bengal, which it characterizes as 'playing the monsoon’. Farmers are advised to achieve a seed-saving of only 70% with SRI methods, not the possible 90% is they establish only one small nursery as recommended, by establishing three nurseries, staggered in timing each about ten days apart. This will give them about a six-week 'window of opportunity' to utilize properly young seedlings between 5 and 15 days of age to be transplanted according to which is at the best age when the monsoon rains finally arrive. It is hard for a poor household to decide to sacrifice two nurseries, and just use the best one. This refinement in timing will add 1-2, even 3 tons/ha to their yield, but farmers at first will be reluctant to sacrifice any seed since for them, every kg of rice is needed for consumption.

After households see this effect of getting a higher yield by using young seedlings at least once, they should be willing to undertake this strategy regularly. The NGO sponsor working with them can offer a guarantee that it will pay them for the 20% of seed 'lost' if their increase in yield from the 10% of seed actually used in a timely way does not exceed that 20% of seed 'sacrificed. There is only a remote chance that this guarantee will need to be paid. This amounts to creating a new culture of rice cultivation, so I do not want to underestimate the difficulty of this, but I think colleagues will see how this could be made to work, starting with just the few farmers in a community who are open to innovation. Having farmer-to-farmer exchange visits, where non-SRI users can see the results of using young seedlings, together with the other practices for themselves, should help to change the present culture.

On water management, this is very different in rainfed SRI because there is no water control. The important thing is to get farmers to understand that by hoarding as much rainwater in their fields as possible, and for as long as possible, causes their rice roots to degenerate and decay. Especially rainfed cultivation, it is important to *grow roots* rather than to focus on growing plants. If the roots are enabled to grow larger and deep, they will be able to access the underground reserves of soil moisture that are present even when surface soil is dry. This means that farmers need judiciously to retain some water for as long as possible but not to keep fields flooded. Here is where having some small reservoirs, such as Pradan's "five percent solution" can come into play. I can't make any general recommendations because water management/retention in rainfed areas is utterly dependent on topography, rainfall patterns, soil water-holding capacities, etc. but the principle is clear: do not hold as much water as possible as long as possible because this will 'cripple' the rice plants, leaving them helpless when soil moisture above ground or at superficial depth is exhausted.

Farmers should be frequently inspecting the roots of their plants (something that farmers seldom do and scientists and extension workers also seldom do). We need to create a root consciousness that gets efforts focused on root growth, and soil moisture retention, which means using young seedlings, as young as possible, and getting organic matter into the soil, as much as possible! Soil management is a big part of water management. This is another 'mental shift' that needs to be accomplished. Don’t just focus on the plant and the water, but on the way that soil and the nutrients (organic matter) are managed.

Maintaining the soil health and sustaining the yield levels, after 3-4 years of repeated usage of SRI method in the same plot. In Madagascar, we have not seen retaining soil fertility to be a problem with SRI, with yields usually continuing to rise year by year provided that substantial amounts of organic matter are continually applied (returned) to the soil. This means all of the rice straw, to begin with. If the straw is used for other purposes like fodder, then some substitute needs to be found. The key to soil health is organic matter! Even in dry areas, there is usually a significant amount of vegetation that can be collected, shredded or otherwise prepared for decomposition, processed and applied to improve soil organic matter. Vegetation is a renewable resource, often most abundant in the months following the onset of rains. Farmers need to invest effort in gathering and utilizing this, possibly supplementing this supply with leguminous plants that grow fast and have particular advantages with nitrogen: Sesbania, Gliricidia, etc. part of a sustainable SRI strategy has to be enhancing soil organic matter. But this is true also for most cultivation strategies. Fertilizer can be used in cases where needed, but we have evidence that compost is not a second-best strategy. When utilized well and abundantly, it will give yields outperforming chemical fertilizer. All SRI farmers should know the advice: don't feed the plant feed the soil, and the soil will feed the plant!

Which package of practices for SRI, would best suit the farmers of this region? Others can comment on this better than I can, and you should be getting responses from others through your network. I do not like the 'package of practices' concept and think in terms of what 'combination of practices' will work best, recognizing that each of the recommended practices has a range of values to be optimized for local conditions: age of seedling, spacing, plants per hill (with less fertile soil, two plants will outperform single plants, because of lack of fertility; SRI practices usually enhance fertility over time, due to the addition of organic matter and due to the exudation from plant roots, so we advise farmers who start with two per hill to experiment in some part of their field with single seedlings to be able to see whether/when their best strategy becomes single seedlings), water management, number of weedings (again, soil aeration is as important as weed control and the number of weedings can usually increase yields without any other inputs), and amounts and kind of organic matter additions.

What are the different organic practices that are replicable and scalable for sustained yields? Also, can farmers completely do away with chemical fertilizers and pesticides? If SRI crop management is done well, under most conditions farmers find that there is not enough loss to pests or diseases to warrant/justify the use of agrochemical protection. If soil is not very fertile, some use of chemical fertilizers can be justified, but this has some effects on the soil that inhibit or unbalance the populations of soil organisms that are so critical to plant growth and health, that this should be done carefully, not reflexively. In a situation of low soil fertility, for myself I would be inclined to use fertilizer to grow more vegetation that can be used as green manure or as compost to enhance soil organic matter, though in the short run, because I would have a family to feed, I would use some fertilizer on the crop itself. SRI is not necessarily 'organic.' Fr. de Laulanie developed SRI using chemical fertilizer in the 1980s because 'everyone else did.' he switched to compost when subsidies for fertilizer were removed, and the farmers with whom he worked could no longer afford fertilizer and he found that this gave even better results. Our factorial trials have confirmed this. I hope everyone will be undogmatic about the use of fertilizer, being instead pragmatic about this. We find that on pragmatic grounds, in most cases, SRI results are best with organic soil nutrition.

What are the low cost implements best suited for transplantation and weeding and how can the use of these be upscaled? This question again is better answered by persons in the area. WASSAN has a very good website (www.wassan.org/sri/) with weeder pictures, designs, etc.

A large number of farmers here go for broadcasting the seeds in upland and medium upland, so what sri practices can be incorporated into this for significantly increasing the yield? There is a direct-seeded version of SRI that I like for areas over 1 hectare. If I need to get the most and surest yield from a smaller area, I will transplant, to ensure maximum productivity from the little land I have. But if i have more land, and am labor-constrained, I will use a methodology which a Srilankan farmer, Ariyaratne Subasinghe in Mahaweli system ‘H’ told me about. He prepares his field as usual, and broadcasts 25 kg/ha of germinated seed (instead of using just 5 kg/ha for a nursery from which he would transplant young seedlings) being prepared to sacrifice 20 kg/ha for the labor-saving he achieves by not establishing a nursery and by not transplanting. When the young plants are 10 days old, he 'weeds' as usual, in a criss-crossing geometric pattern, as if he has transplanted with 25x25 cm spacing thinning the crop stand radically, leaving seedlings standing just as the intersections of his passes up and down and across the field with his weeder. there is usually just one plant at the intersections, but sometimes two or even three. But this no big problem. If there is no plant at an intersection, this is also not much of a problem because the surrounding plants grow into the vacant space and compensate for the lack of plant there. He can reduce his labor requirements by 40% (this is validated by a TNAU researcher, Dr. S. Ramasamy) and his yields are about 7.5 t/ha this way, he reports. He could get a higher yield with more careful plant management, but he is labor-constrained, having little family labor (his children were still very young when he started using sri methods), and he is willing to trade-off yield for labor reductions. There are also drum-seeding methods being used. I expect that in the next 5-10 years there will be many further variations and adaptations of SRI concepts, including things like raised beds, zero tillage, etc.

Experiences of members in sri with indigenous varieties and yield levels that have been achieved. This is one of my biggest interests these days, to have many of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of indigenous varieties evaluated using SRI methods. In Srilanka, where this was first done, with more than a dozen local varieties, we saw that yields of 5-10 t/ha were possible, vs. 2-3 t/ha normally. Some local varieties respond very well to SRI methods, and one reached even 13.3 t/ha. This was less than the 16 t/ha achieved with an improved variety (bg-233), but the market price for Peripanchumal (I may have the tamil spelling wrong) was double that for bg-233, so the farmer next year grew only the local variety because it was more profitable even if the yield was not highest. We need to get away from thinking only about yield, and should look at land, labor, water and financial productivity. I hope that farmers will try out various remaining indigenous varieties before they are lost, even in small areas, to see how these respond to SRI management practices. I think that SRI is going to make many of these old (heirloom) varieties very attractive, and this will benefit consumers (who should pay more for higher quality rice) and farmers (who should get more for this quality).

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