PRADAN’s Expérience on SRI

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Avijit Choudhury

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About PRADAN

Professional Assistance For Development Action is a voluntary organization registered un= der the Societies Registration Act in Delhi. It comprises university-educated people motivated to use their knowledge and skills to remove poverty by working with the poor people. The focus of our = work is to promote and strengthen livelihoods for poor people in villages.<= /o:p>

PRADAN works in regions characterized by under-develo= ped production systems, weak public services, and poorly developed markets and economic services. There is a high proportion of tribal or scheduled caste people in the population. Agriculture, livestock rearing, forest produce an= d wage earnings through seasonal migration are the main sources of subsistence.

The Context

Agriculture is the primary source of livelihoods in t= he regions where PRADAN works and with low present productivity, offers a major opportunity to enhance livelihoods. Enhancing productivity, diversifying in= to agro-ecologically more suitable crops, intensive year round cultivation of vegetables and introduction of horticulture on land not suitable for agriculture presently constitute our agriculture programme.

Improving agriculture, and more broadly the managemen= t of natural resources, is the surest – some would say, the only – w= ay to remove endemic poverty in the States where PRADAN works; conversely, ignoring these would lead to further impoverishment of a vast population dependent on agriculture and natural resources, and stagnation of the econo= my.

The Constraints

While the potential is obvious, our extensive experie= nce shows up many challenges. There is the usual reluctance among farmers to ad= opt dramatically different practices, especially with regard to main subsistence crops. Few come forward even after witnessing successes and fewer still ado= pt changes on anything more than a miniscule scale.

Secondly, the service infrastructure is non-existent = in many places. Even district towns do not have seed and fertilizer stores and= the existing ones are poorly stocked. Potassic fertilizers, for example, are ha= rd to get. Moreover the quality of most seeds is of very inferior quality for which the poor farmers have often incurred losses, as farmers are unable to differentiate between genuine and fake seeds.

Thirdly, as the government extension machinery is moribund, farmers have no access to knowledge and problem-solving services.=

Fourthly, with water resources poorly developed, agriculture is overwhelmingly dependent on the fickle monsoon.

Fifthly, as livestock is of poor quality and there is little mechanization, drought power is a major constraint to intensification and improvement of farming practices.

Finally, farmers have little or no access to financial services, such as working capital for agriculture, term loans for asset creation and insurance.

Paddy Intervention Programme

Keeping the above potential and constraints in mind, PRADAN decided to work for productivity enhancement of kharif paddy in the = year 2001. This work was initiated in Purulia district of West Bengal where padd= y is the major crop in the kharif season and for a majority of the population the only crop as most lands are monocropped.

Due to the undulating topography the lands can be classified as – extreme uplands (tanr); uplands (baid); medium lowland (kanali) and lowland (bohal). On an average a farmer possess 2 to 2.5 acres of paddy land distributed among the aforesaid land categories. Production in the uplands is completely dependent on the vagaries of the monsoon and because of the primitive agricultural practices= the average yield of paddy is 2 to 3 tonnnes per hectare. This leads to a situa= tion whereby they produce food grains which takes care of their food sufficiency= for 4 to 8 months. Our primary aim was to bridge this gap of 8 to 4 months to ensure year the round food sufficiency.

We identified some major intervention points for ensu= ring higher productivity, which are briefly described below:

- &nb= sp; = Change of seed – as a large number of farmers were yet to adopt high yielding varieties, and even those who were using high yielding seeds, were using the same seed for more than 5 years. We arranged for good quality high yielding seeds from Pallishree Company.

- &nb= sp; = Seed rate – the seed rate was as high as 120 kg per hectare, which we want= ed to bring down to 35 kg per hectare over a span of 3 years. So for the 1st year we prescribed 75 kgs.

- &nb= sp; = Seed treatment – introduced seed treatment with Bavistin (carbendazim 50% w.p.)

- &nb= sp; = Nursery- the nursery area was increased from 5% to 10% with proper drainage channels, application of both organic and inorganic fertilizers as basal dose was also introduced.

- &nb= sp; = Timely transplanting – we insisted on transplanting within 25 to 35 days depending on the variety, whereas the usual practice was to go for 45 days nursery. The number of seedlings per hill was brought down from 7-8 to 2-3.=

- &nb= sp; = Green manuring – as the soil quality is very poor we introduced dhaincha= (sesbania aculita) as green manure. But keeping the poor soil in mind we had decided to use inorganic fertilizers to give the farmers a positive experie= nce initially. In the meantime we would gradually motivate them towards organic farming.

- &nb= sp; = Main field – we introduced application of basal dose of inorganic nitrogen= ous and potassic before levelling and line sowing with 6 inches x 8 inches spac= ing.

- &nb= sp; = Fertiliser application, weeding and timely plant protection – besides the basal dose, nitrogenous fertilizer was applied in intervals of 24 days and 45 day= s. Weeding was also stressed upon

To ensure the above steps a battery of Service Provid= ers were trained and employed to work with the PRADAN professionals. Besides th= is, the Self Help Groups provided the necessary credit. The results were quite heartening and we could increase yields up to 6 tons per hectare with the m= odal value being 4 tons. This result was for the lowlands as in most areas the farmers could not transplant in the uplands due to poor rainfall.

For the same reason timely transplanting could not be done and the dhaincha could not be decomposed in the fields before transplanting. As line transplanting was new to the women folk, they were finding it difficult and as time was a factor because of the rainfall, many farmers did not adopt it. Inspite of all these problems, the higher product= ion in the lowlands went a long way in bridging the food sufficiency gap. In that year 2001we had worked with about 500 farmers

The promising results also gave us the confidence to = take up the intervention in other locations of PRADAN in Keonjhar (Orissa), Puru= lia (West Bengal), Lohardaga, Gumla, Khunti = and Hazaribag (Jharkhand). In the kharif season of 2002 we were now working with 4000 families. But at the same time we were looking for new techniques to increase and stabilize the high productivity.

Graduating to SRI

By the end of the 2002 kharif season we had worked wi= th 4000 farmers spread across the States of Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal. In all places the higher production helped us to gain = the confidence of the community, who otherwise are reluctant to adopt new pract= ices involving either more capital or manpower. This also increased the confiden= ce of the farmers who had become more open to new ideas. It was in this positi= ve frame that we decided to initiate the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technology.

Source of the idea

On November 2002 (27^th Nov 2002), Prof. Up= hoff came to India to make a presentation to Ministry of Agriculture at Krishi Bhawan. On 28th we met him and got better insight and felt encouraged to try the idea. His argument that plant vigour and productivity is not only dependent on genotype and could be manipulated through better root health management was convincing. The science behind the package of practices, as explained by Pr= of. Uphoff made lot of sense.

A small beginning

At Purulia we became excited with the idea and decide= d to try it with a few progressive farmers in Jhalda-1 and Kashipur blocks. The = team even decided to engage additional service provider to ensure the package of= SRI and go ahead even if one farmer agreed to try it.

This was January 2003, farmers at Arjundih and Gutilo= wa village, by that time already sown nursery for summer paddy. We could motiv= ate four farmers to try SRI in 13 decimals of lands. We suggested early transplanting of seedling. But because of severe cold, germination and growth suffered. Age = of transplanting could not be maintained.

Observations/ experience

The first few weeks the farmers were very nervous, the fields looked barren because of the 1 ft x 1 ft spacing. But gradually as t= he temperature rose up plants showed faster tillering with the number of tille= rs even going up to 60 per hill. Even those farmers who did not follow the prescribed irrigation practices and had left their fields dry for extended periods got around 40-45 tillers which was more than the normal tillering following the conventional practice. But inspite of the high tillering, the conversion of tillers to panicle was 40% to 70%, with the highest number of panicles per hill being around 20-35. The number of grains per panicle was around 150-180 as compared to around 90- 120 grains per panicle in the conventional method. But inspite of more number of chaffy grains was an iss= ue. Even the flag leaf was quite wide and the plants always looked green. The difference was easily visible, which convinced the farmers.

Unfortu= nately that season there were four consecutive hailstorms, which devastated the cr= op, and there was virtually no production. As these plots were sown late (much later than other plots were transplanted with normal summer paddy), one far= mer harvested the crop prematurely as all other neighbouring farmers harvested their crops early. Even though production could not be harvested but the cr= op stand in field had a good impact over the villagers and more people got motivated to practice SRI in next kharif season.

This was quite exciting and we began to arrange a series of exposure for farmers from our various project locations to Jhalda during the different stages of growth. Though most farmers were fairly convinced seeing the standing crop,= but back in their locations they were reluctant to adopt the practice during the ensuing kharif season. They began citing various excuses like poor soil, difficulty in managing water during the monsoons, reluctance to drain of wa= ter for fear of no rainfall afterwards, more labour intensive practices.

Gaining confidence for trials in more locations

In Khar= if 2003, 48 farmers adopted SRI in 15 acres of land. This time our intervention mostly remained limited in neighbouring villages of Arjundih. Couple of far= mers tried SRI in Barabazar and Balarampur. Some farmers in Raigarh, Balliguda, Chakradharpur and Keonjhar also tried SRI.=

As we did not encourage farmers to apply any chemical fertiliser, and farmers did not have adequate organic manure to apply to SRI plots, performance of the crop suffered.&n= bsp; During the tillering phase, most plots showed on an average 45 to 60 tiller per hill. But when panicle appeared, we found numbers of effective tiller per hill were only in the range of 20 to 30. This is manly due to inadequate supply of nutrients at the later phase (Reproductive phase) of t= he crop growth.

We also observed that, regular drainage is very impor= tant to ensure good health of roots. In most plots we found that at latter stage= , as farmers stopped hoeing, most roots got decomposed and turned black. This mu= st have affected maturity of the crop (reducing number of tillers).=

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Poor nutrient status of plot badly affected crop at Keonjhar, showing that there is not m= agic in SRI. Nutrients have to be supplemented from out side in the kind of land= s we see in this region. Spacing should be less, if fertility status of plot is poor. In good soil, plant vigour was distinctly more than “convention= al improved practice” and occurrence of disease and pests were low.

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The yields a= gain ranged from 3.75 tons in Keonjhar to 7.5 tons in Purulia. But the yields be= yond 6 tons made us sceptical and we ourselves began doubting the results, attributing it to error in data collection.

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Some of the fears of the farmer were not unfounded as= we did indeed face problems in alternate drying and soaking the fields. Moreov= er initially we had tried to raise dry bed nurseries but because of no rainfal= l, most farmers went for a second batch of nursery and some even went for nurs= ery for the third time using the wet bed technique. But this was a blessing in disguise as farmers now could realize that they could time their nurseries seeing the monsoon, thus overcoming the problem of over mature seedlings. Moreover as the seed requirement was very little, the monetary loss was miniscule.

As the transplanting in SRI fields was quite late, the crop was ready for harvest only in early December. This somehow convinced t= he farmers that the crop duration gets extended on adoption of SRI technique by 10-15 days. Though we tried to explain that they should also consider the f= act that the farmers went for nurseries about a month later.

We used this= year for exposure. Most of the teams, working in eastern region, along with farm= ers visited Purulia to see SRI.

Gathering Momentum

As kharif is the main season for paddy in most of our operational areas, and as we had managed yields beyond 5 tons we decided to push for it during the summer paddy in Purulia and spread it in many more villages. We had gained confidence because inspite of the difficulty in wat= er management during kharif the yields in most plots were higher than in the fields where the conventional practise was adopted. It also decided to supplement the soil with chemical fertilizer in next sea= son to enhance conversion of tillers into panicle. Which normally goes against = the principle of SRI but taking local farmers situation in to consideration, we= had limited option to replenish soil nutrients to support such high yield.=

To spre= ad the technology we had arranged exposures and meeting with farmers to convince t= hem. These exposures started having an impact, as now about 60 farmers in Purulia alone were ready to adopt SRI during the summer paddy of 2004 in 10 acres of land. Majority were in Arjundih-Gutilowa (Jhalda-1), Bansberra, Amagara, Gokulnagar (Barabazar) and Bandudih (Bagmundi) clusters. Couple of farmers = was included from Adali (Kashipur) village. The number was mainly determined by availability of irrigation.

The professionals made intensive field level supervision to ensure proper packa= ge of practices. The most heartening part was that a majority of them were fir= st timers. Moreover this was possible, as the early adopters became proponents= of this technique in their areas, extending support to the new farmers in their fields along with the PRADAN professionals.

Even though some people could not manage to provide all the irrigations, particularly in Bansberra village of Barabazar block.= Some plots in Gokulnagar (Barabazar block) also suffered due to shortage of wate= r. But even then the performance of SRI plots were better than non-SRI plots, clea= rly showing the better establishment of roots systems in case of SRI. Prolific root growth at the initial stage gave higher strength to tolerate water stress situation later. The results this time were simply beyond our expectation, especially in the cas= e of Chotulal Mandi a Santhal farmer of Gokulnagar village in Barabazar block. T= he production in his field of 8.38 decimal was 360 kg, which works out to 10.7 tons per hectare.

Though = we were very excited we did not have the confidence to share this data with the outside world. But we did start taking the Block Agriculture Development Officers of our operational Blocks for exposures and shared with them the experiences. He was convinced and even asked his departmental staff to see = the fields and agreed to try it in the Block Farm during the kharif. Even the l= ocal political leaders were invited for exposures. Gradually SRI became a topic = of discussion and word about the wonder technique began to spread by mouth.

Take Off

This was the third year of our paddy intervention programme and we had made significant strides in terms of outreach. During kharif 2004 we were now working with approximately 12,000 farmers in the St= ates of Orissa, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal= . The intervention points like less seed rate, short duration of nursery; line sowing with greater spacing, transplanting 2-3 seedlings per hill was gradu= ally orienting the people towards SRI. Within the organization also this technol= ogy was being much talked about and people started taking an active interest in= its replication.

We did not set any big targets to scale up. Systematic exposures were conducted at local level. Many farmers were willing to adopt= SRI practices in 2004 Kharif. But late arrival of monsoon, particularly = in Jhalda block affected the spread. Still 157 farmers (in 26 hectare) adopted= SRI at Purulia. In one village a better off farmer brought all his paddy land u= nder SRI. But due to longer dry spell, weeding and hoeing could not be done in t= ime. That affected the crop growth and cost of weeding also shoot up when it rai= ned.

Some other farmers in Jhalda (Purulia) waited till monsoon settled properly, by that time it was as late as September. Some farmers sown and transplanted long duration (135 days +) paddy in first wee= k of September. Vegetative growth was satisfactory but the crop suffered as temperature went down (may be below 15⁰ Celsius) by middle of October affecting reproductive growth and panicle emergence. But some other farmers tried short duration varieties (100 – 110 days), which perfor= med well (did not face any trauma due to cold).

In 2006 abou= t 6200 farmers adopted SRI in 620 ha of land, in West Benga= l, Jharkhand, Orissa and MP. This year we are collecting a lot of data like ag= e of seedlings, no, of tillers, yield etc. with most of the farmers

But the point that was bothering us was the yield data and also the issue that farmers were repeatedly raising about it being much more labour intensive. Further more we did not have the know-how to ascerta= in whether the water requirement was really less and to what extent.

Collaboration with IWMI-Tata Foundation

At the beginning of the year 2004, we sought support = from Prof. Tushaar Shah, IWMI-TATA foundation to help us in documenting the experience of SRI at Purulia. The foundation placed a research scholar to t= ake up an intensive field level study. This study involved regular interaction with SRI farmers and collect= ing data on all relevant farmer level practices and outputs. =

Impact on the poor farmer

As is true of all new technology, its adoption and replication depends on the impact it has on the farmers’ household economics. Thus at this juncture it would be very pertinent to see the cost-benefit for a typical farmer of agro-climatic zone VII possessing 2 ac= res of paddy land. The following example is of Kharif 2004.

Name of farmer: Sripati Mahato

Village: Bansberra

= Conventional Practise	= SRI Practise
= Variety: MTU 7029	= Area: 10.5 dec.	=	= Variety: MTU 7029	= Area: 14 dec.	=
= Item	= Cost (Rs.)	= Cost for 100 decimals (Rs.)	= Item	= Cost (Rs.)	= Cost for 100 decimals (Rs.)
Seed – 5 kg	60	571=	Seed - .090kg<= /span>	1	7
FYM in nursery-30 kg=	15	143=	FYM in nursery-30 kg=	15	107=
Labour for seed bed preparation and seed treatment – 3.5 hrs	28	267=	Labour for seed bed preparation and seed treatment – 3 hrs	24	171=
Basal dose input in mainf= ield – (2.5 kg DAP; 2.5 kg Potash; 5 kg Urea+ 240 kg FYM)	182	1733	Basal dose input in mainf= ield – (3 kg DAP; 3 kg Potash+ 320 kg FYM)	205	1464
Labour for ploughing & levelling – 5 hrs	40	381=	Labour for ploughing & levelling – 6 hrs	48	343=
Labour for transplanting – 38 hrs	304	2895	Labour for transplanting – 27 hrs	216	1543
Labour for interculture operations – 6 hrs	48	457=	Labour for interculture operations – 17 hrs	136	971=
Top dressing (5 kg Urea)<= o:p>	25	238=	Top dressing (5 kg Urea)<= o:p>	25	179=
Labour for harvesting &am= p; threshing – 15 hrs	120	1143	Labour for harvesting &am= p; threshing – 21 hrs	168	1200
Total Cost Incurred (Rs.)=	822	7828	Total Cost Incurred (Rs.)=	838	5985
Total Income (Rs.)	959	9126	Total Income (Rs.)	2302	16441
Total paddy yield	200 kg =3DRs.800	1904 kg =3D Rs. 7616=	Total paddy yield	520 kg =3D Rs.2080	3714 kg =3D Rs. 14856
Total straw yield	317 kg =3D Rs.159	3019 kg =3D Rs. 1510=	Total straw yield	444 kg =3D Rs 222	3171 kg =3D Rs.1585<= /o:p>

Thus the profit in paddy cultivatio= n by adopting the conventional and SRI techniques for 100 decimals is as follows= :

1.&n= bsp; = ; &n= bsp; Conventional&nb= sp; =3D Rs 1,298

2.&n= bsp; = ; &n= bsp; SRI &= nbsp; &nbs= p; =3D Rs 10,456

The economics in itself spe= aks about the potential of this technology to address the poverty and meet the = year round food security of the poor people in our operational area.<= /span>

(Note: The cost of different items have been computed considering the following unit cost- Labour =3D Rs.8/ hr; DAP =3D Rs 10/kg; Urea & pota= sh =3D Rs8/kg; Seed =3D Rs12/kg; FYM =3D Rs.0.50/kg; Paddy =3D Rs4/kg; Straw =3D R= s.0.50/ Kg)

Constraints

In our work space, given the undulating topography of agro-ecological Zone VII, inspite of the good rain= fall, its erratic nature combined with the profile of the farmers brings in new complicacies in following the entire SRI package and its wide replication.<= o:p>

Ø = Poor farmers have a tendency to go for early dry bed nurseries. As onset of mons= oon in most years gets delayed, the seedlings become over mature. Even when far= mers go for late nurseries by the wet bed method with the monsoon fairly stabili= zed; when the seedlings are 10-12 days old the rains do stop for a week or so, whereby again the seedlings become old. Thus timing the nurseries to match = with the short transplanting spells becomes a gamble.

Ø = As is the case of this year, when farmers wait for the monsoons to stabilize, = it becomes as late as September. But as temperature goes down below 15^{0
Celsius after mid October, it affects the reproductive phase of the plant.<=
o:p>}

Ø = Since most fields do not have irrigation support, farmers are unwilling to dry the field for fear of no rainfall afterwards.&= nbsp; So alternate wetting and drying is not always possible. In most cases because of inadequate drought power the farmers cannot level the mainfield. Thus uniform water depth cannot be maintained throughout large plots.<= /o:p>

Ø = As the plots are alternatively dried, weed emergence increases, which is not t= he case when the fields are flooded.

Ø = Due to the skill factor, uprooting the seedlings without disturbing the roots emerges as a major problem in the field. Moreover as the women are not accustomed to line sowing, the task becomes cumbersome and more time taking= . In addition to this, the need for regular weeding and hoeing keeps people away from adopting this technique in large scale.

Ø = As has been witnessed in the field, because of the nutrient deficient soil, the prolific vegetative growth is hampered during the reproductive phase. Most farmers do not have sufficient organic manure to replenish the soil neither= is there the knowhow, inclination and financial strength to go for vermicompos= ting and such things.

Grey areas

The following have emerged as grey areas on which we = have to have a deeper understanding and calibration.

Water requirement in SRI vis-a vis the conventional method which affects the coverage under irrigated conditions.
Nutrient required by the plant to produce more effective tillers, which then mi= ght need to be supplemented.
Nutrient exhausted from the soil, which would need to be replenished to maintain the high yields.
Efficacy of the use of pre emergence herbicides.

Challenges

The experiences in the fields have brought up new concerns and challenges. The sooner these issues are addressed the better. = The potential of this technology is no more in question but this leaves us with= a bigger issue of how to take it to the masses.

Ø = &nb= sp; One dominant thought is that, it would be difficult to ensure entire SRI packag= e with poor farmers in this undulated rain-fed terrain. Efforts need to be made to explore the possibilities of mainstream funding to promote irrigation throu= gh in-situ moisture conservation to promote SRI with more farmers in this terr= ain.

Ø = &nb= sp; Knowledge building of the farmers through training and exposure so that they can lear= n to play with monsoon and decide how to use selected techniques of SRI in growi= ng rice successfully in this terrain with out irrigation support.

Ø = &nb= sp; Mechanisation through implements like mark= ers and weeders can substantially reduce the drudgery of these activities, which involves the maximum labour. This also has a direct bearing on the yield as= it would check root degeneration and keep the soil aerated. Mainstream funding= for providing these implements would encourage the poor and marginal farmers to= go for greater coverage and follow the prescribed practices.=

Ø = &nb= sp; Sustained efforts have to be made to encourage use of organic manure to improve the soil. Promotion of green manu= ring and composting has to be addressed immediately if we are to sustain the high yields.

Ø = &nb= sp; The data of this season is yet to be processed. We collaborated with IWMI- TATA Foundation to study SRI during the current season. That is expected to thro= ugh more light about the field level practices, which we ourselves could not monitor. We expect that all these would help us to standardise the package suitable to this region and scale up. We also expect research study on the = grey areas to ground SRI in a better manner.