Helping farmers adopt the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) enables them to grow far more food more cost-effectively and sustainably, producing higher yields with less water, fertilizer, seeds, and labor. With Oxfam’s support, more than one million farmers and families in Vietnam and Cambodia have practiced SRI and benefited from both improved and local rice varieties. On average, farmers have seen a 10–100 percent or more increase in yields, up to a 90 percent reduction in required seed, and up to a 50 percent savings in water usage. The rice plant health and ecosystems in the paddy fields continually improve. SRI has reached more than 16 percent of the total rice farming population in the northern region of Vietnam—home to most of the small-scale, resource-poor rice farmers in the country.
...The findings reported here derive from a regional collaborative project (http://www.sri-lmb.ait.asia/). More than 15,000 farmers participated in the field trials located in 33 districts of 11 provinces in the Lower-Mekong-Basin (LMB). The number of experiments conducted was more than 1,500. Project data show that System of Rice Intensification practices helped to improve conditions across the LMB region. Average rice yield increased by 52%, net economic returns were raised by 70%. Labour productivity increased by 64%; water productivity by 61%; and the efficiency of mineral fertilizer-use rose by 163%. The total energy input required for farming operations was decreased by 34%, while emissions of greenhouse gas were significantly reduced, by 14% with irrigated rice production, and by 17% per-hectare in rainfed cropping.The results of this farmer-participatory research characterize climate-smart agricultural practices that can promote household-food-security and support market-oriented development at low cost, especially in rainfed areas.
7 STEPS OF SYSTEM OF RICE INTENSIFICATION-SRI METHOD (៧ជំហ៊ាននៃការធ្វើស្រែតាមបែបប្រពលវប្បកម្ម). A video showing the SRI practices as promoted by the Karuna Battambang Organization (KBO) in Cambodia through its CROAP project.
The Rice Dragon is a manual rotary weeder developed “by women for women”. It was designed, produced and marketed by Oxfam and RACHANA in South East Asia. The Rice Dragon is the NGO Earth Links' featured SRI equipment of the month. for November 2019.
...In comparison with pre-project baseline performance, SRI practices helped improve livelihoods across the Lower Mekong River Basin (LMB) by increasing average rice yields by 52%, farmers’ net economic return per hectare by 70%, labor-use efficiency by 64%, and water productivity by 59%. Total energy inputs required for farming operations decreased by 34%, along with significant net reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The results were reported from 582 research sites spread across 33 districts in 11 provinces of the four countries, all as a part of a regional project led by the Asian Institute of Technology with funded by the EU for €3.4 million.
SRI-Rice's insight:
The final report for the SRI-LMB Workshop (Nov. 1-2, 2018) is now available. You can also find the evaluation of the SRI-Lower Mekong Basin project, which ran from 2013-2018 in four countries. There are also available from theSRI-LMB website: http://sri-lmb.ait.ac.th/
Farmers from eleven mostly rainfed provinces of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam have reported higher yields and profits from paddy grown with System of Rice Intensification (SRI).
In comparison with pre-project baseline performance, SRI practices helped improve livelihoods across the Lower Mekong River Basin (LMB) by increasing average rice yields by 52%, farmers’ net economic return per hectare by 70%, labour use efficiency by 64%, and water productivity by 59%. Total energy inputs required for farming operations decreased by 34%, along with significant net reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. These results were reported at a regional workshop of the SRI-LMB project held in Bangkok on November 1-2, 2018.
The December 2017 (Vol 5 Issue 2) issue of the SRI-LMB newsletter has project updates on activities related to adaptation of SRI methods to rain-fed rice production in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. The project “Sustaining and Enhancing the Momentum for Innovation and Learning around the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in the Lower Mekong River Basin” (SRI-LMB) is an EU-financed effort led by ACISAI at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand.
SRI-Rice's insight:
Presentations about the SRI-LMB Project findings were delivered by Abha Mishra recently in South Africa at the 4th Global Science Conference on Climate Smart Agriculture, and the 3rd International Conference on Global Food Security.
Learn the details of Cambodia's participation in the SRI-LMB project in this presentation by Kong Kea, Project Management Unit, General Directorate of Agriculture, MAFF, Cambodia at the Regional Workshop for SRI-LMB Project, held 23-25 April 2017, in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The Asian Center of Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (ACISAI) is implementing an EU-financed project entitled “Sustaining and Enhancing the Momentum for Innovation and Learning around the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in the Lower Mekong River Basin.” The project aims to enhance the resilience of rainfed small-scale farmers of Lower Mekong region (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) by using Farmers’ Field School (FFS) approaches to sustainably improve agricultural productivity and food security through adapting and adopting SRI methods. As part of the action-research, more than 405 sets of field experiments have been carried out involving approximately 7,000 farmers. The initial calculation of yields across the region has showed an average paddy yield of 4.7 t/ha which is 66 % more than the regional baseline yield. (See project website)
A recent study by Scholz (2016) on the impact of CEDAC interventions found that organic farmers that are part of its network have on average 4.8 times more income compared to non-CEDAC farmers. CEDAC is one of the Pesticide Action Network in the Asia-Pacific’s (PANAP) partner organizations. It’s innovative approach started with the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in 1999, which facilitated farmer trainings on organic and good agricultural practices and helped build farmer knowledge. With its success, the SRI was mainstreamed in the Cambodian government’s strategic development plans. CEDAC’s target group consists of subsistence growers who are able to produce a minimum surplus of 500 kg jasmine rice per producer group. As of now, CEDAC is in 22 out of the 25 Cambodian provinces.
Dec. 2016 SRI-LMB Newsletter for the EU-financed project “Sustaining and Enhancing the Momentum for Innovation and Learning around the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in the Lower Mekong River Basin” The main objective of the project is to contribute to enhance resilience of rainfed small-scale farmers of Lower Mekong region confronting climate change. The project implementation period is for 60 months with a total cost of action approximately 3.4 million Euros.
USAID’s Cambodia Countering Trafficking-in-Persons program, carried out by Winrock International, is supporting local agricultural organization CEDAC to train a total of 400 individuals across three provinces in Cambodia on this rice farming technique, called the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). These individuals will go on to train others in their communities on SRI. This extra income provides stability and prevents vulnerable people from seeking work abroad, which makes them at-risk to trafficking.
•Factors explaining variability in rice yields in Cambodia was investigated.
•Four variables explained 39% of variance in rice yield.
•The four variables are: access to FYM, farmer’s SRI, hill density and SOC.
•Shift from conventional practices to farmer’s SRI increased rice yield by 14%.
•One Mg increase in SOC ha−1 resulted in a yield increase of 80 kg ha−1.
SRI-Rice's insight:
Ly, Proyuth, Lars Stoumann Jensen, et al. 2016. Factors explaining variability in rice yields in a rain-fed lowland rice ecosystem in Southern Cambodia. NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences (in press). doi:10.1016/j.njas.2016.05.003
The world is facing a “cannonball” experience caused by Covid-19. The event of 20 February involving a violation of quarantine protocols caused the virus to spread in Cambodia and create some panic. In a little over four months the number of cases, which was only 522 for over a year, is now over 61,000 and nearly 825 deaths.
Programmes involving school children are facing major setbacks because of school closures. Schools can open in August or September depending on the situation, but that is a few months after the beginning of the rice planting season. Nonetheless, at Xavier Jesuit School, seedlings were prepared for some students to practice the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). With this project, students will be able to compare the input cost per yield per hectare of SRI with traditional rice planting methods.
Aufgrund der Maßnahmen gegen die Corona-Pandemie haben Hunderttausende Kambodschaner ihre Jobs verloren. Viele müssen Kredite aufnehmen, um ihre Existenz zu sichern. Einen Ausweg bietet die Landwirtschaft: Dank der Reis-Anbaumethode SRI (System of Rice Intensification) können sich viele Familie ein kleines Einkommen und Nahrung sichern. Die Situation ist trotzdem schwierig. Das zeigen die Geschichten einiger Personen, die uns erreichen
SRI-Rice's insight:
This article details how farmers working with the Karuna Battambang Organization in Cambodia are finding good livelihood opportunities with SRI during the COVID crisis. Further information (in English) can be found in Noel Oliver's newsletter (http://sri.cals.cornell.edu/countries/cambodia/CambOliverRptCROAP_082920.pdf), which also details his SRI work with women, children, and youth (both those who have migrated and returned and those who did not migrate).
Farmer opinions of the SRI being promoted by the Centre for Research on Optimal Agricultural Practices (CROAP) project, a ministry of the Apostolic Prefecture of Battambang and Jesuit Service Cambodia.
Video produced for the final regional workshop (Nov. 1-2, 2018) of the four-country EU-funded, AIT-led project entitled Sustaining and Enhancing the Momentum for Innovation and Learning around the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in the Lower Mekong River Basin. The SRI-LMB project, which was lead by the ACISAI Centre at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, benefited 15,000 farmers in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. (more info: http://sri-lmb.ait.ac.th/
Most of the burden of growing rice is on women farmers working on small plots of land. The physical strain on them is immense, and the long-term effects are severe. Women rice growers deserve greater recognition and new strategies to help lighten their load.
SRI-Rice's insight:
This film was shown during the keynote address given by Minh Le, Oxfam’s global agricultural advisor, during the October 2018 International Rice Congress in Singapore. Also included in the key was a note on how SRI methods can address a number of the health challenges that women face in the rice fields. SRI reduces drudgery by eliminating transport of heavy older seedlings and working in flooded conditions. Also, introducing women-friendly equipment that can reduce the time and drudgery involved in weeding and other farm operations.
Community Development-Agriculture program: The System of Rice Intensification-SRI that currently spread to 28 farmers, youth and women by Croap, in KeoMony Village, Battambang, Cambodia.
Find out more about how SRI can contribute significantly to enhancing small farmer incomes, their living standards, and the overall food security in the Lower Mekong River Basin. This edition of the newsletter also contains items about the SRI-LMB Workshop in Laos (April), the Regional Review and Planning Workshop in Vietnam, and a look at some of the champion farmers who participate in the four-country EU-financed project “Sustaining and Enhancing the Momentum for Innovation and Learning around the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in the Lower Mekong River Basin.” The project, which is led by the Asian Institute of Technology involves farmers in 11 provinces in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
Despite her worry about thieves, having enough rice to lock up is a nice problem for Koeu, a 55-year-old widow in Cambodia’s Pursat province. She says she is now making more money, and growing more rice, since she learned to apply what’s known as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in 2010.
About 500 million women worldwide are involved in rice production. Conventional rice production harms women in a number of ways. SRI helps to improve rice production and to reduce this harm to women. SRI4Women produces communications material to share information with women at a grassroots level and to raise awareness at a policy level.
SRI-Rice's insight:
As its first project, SRI4Women will document rice-growing practices in India, Kenya and Cambodia, where Oxfam America raises awareness about SRI among rice farmers. Over the next year, SRI4Women will produce video material about the difficulties faced by conventional women rice farmers and, in collaboration with women SRI farmers in these countries, look at how SRI can help to address those difficulties at the different stages of rice production.
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.
Your new post is loading...
flyttfirmor