More Output with Reduced Inputs; Momentum Grows for System of Rice Intensification
The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is being evaluated and disseminated by an international network of NGO, government, university, private-sector, community and farmer partners, backstopped by the Cornell Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD). Both evidence and momentum are growing for use of SRI methods to increase rice production around the world. These methods enable farmers to achieve substantial increases with a reduction in seeds, fertilizer and water, and often even their labor inputs.
SRI is unprecedented in several ways, the most evident being that it enables farmers to get more output with reduced inputs. This seems illogical. But by changing the way that they manage their rice plants, soil, water and nutrients, farmers can usually get much higher yields per hectare and per hour of labor, and also higher returns per cubic meter of water and per dollar, rupee or peso expended. The changes recommended include:
- Reduce the number of plants per square meter, so less seed is used.
- Replace the practice of continuous flooding of fields with irrigation as needed so less water is required.
- Boost soil fertility with compost or other biomass, thereby using less or no chemical fertilizer, just straw and other vegetative matter.
- Rely on the enhanced natural resistance of SRI plants to pest and disease damage, so there is little or no need for agrochemical crop protection.
While ‘getting more from less’ is counterintuitive, the reasons for these gains in factor productivity can be accounted for with uncontroversial scientific explanations, focusing on root growth and functioning, and on greater abundance, diversity and activity of aerobic soil organisms.
Because SRI methods raise the yields for practically all varieties of rice, improved or traditional, there is no need to purchase new seeds. Farmers can use whatever variety they prefer. And although initially more labor is required while the methods are being learned, once these are mastered, SRI can even become labor-saving for farmers. When the harvested SRI paddy rice is milled, there is usually 10% or more increase in the milled rice outturn. Why? Because there is less chaff (unfilled grains) and fewer broken grains. So this is a ‘bonus’ beyond harvested yield.
The productivity and benefits of these practices that constitute SRI, which originated in Madagascar some 25 years ago, have now been validated in 36 countries across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America (for detailed information, see the SRI website at: http://ciifad. cornell.edu/sri/). The earlier controversy in scientific circles about SRI is receding as agencies like the World Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are now reporting on its benefits (see the World Bank Institute web site for more information).
SRI stems from the life’s work of a French priest, Fr.Henri de Laulanié, who was sent to Madagascar in 1961 and who lived there for the next 34 years, working with farmers and doing his own trials and experiments. By the early 1980s, he had assembled the practices that constitute SRI, and he continued this work until his death in 1995.
Pere de Laulanié was not an agricultural novice, having studied at a leading agricultural school in Paris before entering a Jesuit seminary in 1939. But when he arrived in Madagascar shortly after that country’s independence from France, there was no agricultural science establishment. He had to rely mostly on observation and experimentation, plus assessment and assimilation of some innovative farmer practices. He also had some benefit from serendipity which he acknowledged (Uphoff, 2006).
Pere de Laulanié was not an agricultural novice, having studied at a leading agricultural school in Paris before entering a Jesuit seminary in 1939. But when he arrived in Madagascar shortly after that country’s independence from France, there was no agricultural science establishment. He had to rely mostly on observation and experimentation, plus assessment and assimilation of some innovative farmer practices. He also had some benefit from serendipity which he acknowledged (Uphoff, 2006).
A review of recent developments within this network will give a better idea of how it operates than can any effort to generalize about it. Noting what is being accomplished will indicate what this innovation can contribute to reducing food insecurity and to combating present adverse environmental trends, affecting the availability and quality of water and arable land. It gives some clues to how other innovations in agriculture or other domains may proliferate in the new era of modern communication. More information on all of these cases, and others, can be obtained from the SRI website noted above.
Afghanistan. Non-governmental organizations have been the major initiators of SRI evaluation and spread in many countries. In Afghanistan, staff of the Aga Khan Foundation, an international charitable organization, were working to improve irrigation systems in Baghlan province. A f g h a n i s t a n . Non-governmental organizations have been the major initiators of SRI evaluation and spread in many countries. In Afghanistan, staff of the Aga Khan Foundation, an international charitable organization, were working to improve irrigation systems in Baghlan province.
However, farmers could see unusually vigorous growth in the SRI plants. In 2008, the six farmers who used SRI methods properly, with AKF staff supervision, had average yields of 10.1 tons/hectare, almost double the 5.4 tons average they got on their adjacent control plots with usual methods. In the country as a whole, rice yields average about 2 tons. The European Union project that funded AKF’s natural resource work ended in December 2008, but the success of the SRI evaluations encouraged the EU to arrange a four-year extension of the SRI initiative.
G h a n a . Some of SRI’s spread has been pioneered by individual farmers in different countries, who are getting ever more adept at using email and internet. A farmer in Ghana, Kwame Adu Broni, began corresponding about SRI by email in 2003, having learned about this methodology from a CIIFAD staff member in Ghana. At the time he was involved with a small NGO called Foundation for Organic Agriculture Movement. He did some trials in the Western Region in 2007, but didn’t get the methods quite right. Still, the vigorous plant growth attracted other farmers’ interest. In 2008, he managed a successful SRI crop on half a hectare. Its 2 ton-yield (4 tons/hectare) was twice as much as usual in this humid rainforest area.
Ghana. Some of SRI’s spread has been pioneered by individual farmers in different countries, who are getting ever more adept at using email and internet. A farmer in Ghana, Kwame Adu Broni, began corresponding about SRI by email in 2003, having learned about this methodology from a CIIFAD staff member in Ghana. At the time he was involved with a small NGO called Foundation for Organic Agriculture Movement. He did some trials in the Western Region in 2007, but didn’t get the methods quite right. Still, the vigorous plant growth attracted other farmers’ interest. In 2008, he managed a successful SRI crop on half a hectare. Its 2 ton-yield (4 tons/hectare) was twice as much as usual in this humid rainforest area.
Iraq and Iran. In both of these countries, rice researchers in government rice research stations have been evaluating SRI methods since 2005. Their reports from 2008 evaluations are posted on the SRI website. Dr. Khidhir Hameed at the Al-Mishkhab Rice Research Station near Najaf in Iraq reports 70% higher yields with SRI methods in carefully monitored on-farm comparison trials, using 1/3 less water. He has also been experimenting with the growing of clover as a green manure to enhance nitrogen and organic matter in the soil, a key constraint for agricultural production in Iraq.
Bahman Amiri Larijani, head of the agronomy department at Haraz Technology Research and Development Center in Iran near the Caspian Sea, has documented a 60% average increase in yield with reduced costs of production in his evaluations during 2008. Also last year, we had the first reports validating SRI methods in Egypt, from Dr. Waled Elkhoby at the Rice Research and Training Center at Sakha. These are examples of government personnel taking the initiative to evaluate and extend SRI in their countries. In 2008, Khidhir and MRRS colleagues trained 1,600 farmers in Al-Mutthana province on SRI methods despite the difficult and dangerous conditions in Iraq.
Rwanda. In 2006, a project manager for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) invited the president and secretary of Association Tefy Saina, the NGO in Madagascar from which I learned about SRI, to come to Rwanda to train farmers in SRI methods. By 2008, there were over 2,000 farmers in two project areas using these methods, with average yield of 6 to 7 tons/hectare, compared to their previous yield averaging 4 tons/ha. With such results, SRI is now being proposed for IFAD projects dealing with the rice sector in other countries.
These are quick summaries of SRI initiatives and results seen in the past year in a variety of countries around the world. The common theme is that individuals based in a variety of organizations have seen the possibilities for benefiting farmers, consumers and the environment concurrently and have used their institutional bases, whether governmental, NGO, university or other, to start evaluations, and then on the basis of results they have sought to bring knowledge of the new management methods to others.
The story of SRI is still being written, by the efforts of now thousands of persons in dozens of countries, operating in and across diverse sectors, from a multiplicity of institutional bases. It is showing that the standard paths of innovation, coming from one sector and operating in a standard invent-then-disseminate mode, are being surpassed by more pluralistic and more bottom-up or horizontal strategies. Stay tuned.
R E F E R E N C E S
◗ Lines G.A. and N. Uphoff (2006). A remarkable civil society contribution to food and nutrition security in Madagascar and beyond. In: U. Kracht and M. Schulz, eds., Food and Nutrition Security in the Process of Globalization and Urbanization, 426-438. Lit-Verlag, Münster.
◗ Uphoff, N. (2006). The development of the System of Rice Intensification. In: Participatory Research and Development for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development, J. Gonsalves et al., eds., Vol. III, 119-125. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa.
