SRI Global News ++ March - May 2025 System of Rice Intensification (SRI)

The People's Science Institute (PSI), a non-profit research and development organisation, has helped close to 50,000 farmers switch from conventional farming methods to SRI in the last 15 years.  In 2006, Debashish Sen, director of PSI, and his team of agri-experts began training farmers based in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in the SRI technique.  In MP’s Shahpur Khurd village, Kavita Singh tells The Better India, “Initially, I was hesitant to adopt a new technique that required planting fewer crops. I thought it would be a waste of space, in addition to being more labour intensive. But the staggering results painted a different picture...”

When an innovation does not arise out of a research laboratory or available scientific models, it is often met with indifference and opposition from the scientific community. And yet there are scientists who responded positively to this technique, all across from China to Gambia. These are scientists who were open to working with farmers and NGOs; and aware that the work in research stations is just not enough; and on-farm experience is as essential. From the farmer’s side, there was always a dire need to harvest more from less.

Even in its presentation, SRI is conceived not as a technology, but as a methodology based on a set of ideas that can be and is being translated into practice. It’s not so much as doing something new, as much as doing the same thing differently. And it enables smallholder farmers all over the world to get more from less. It’s proponents say that it’s still a work in progress, and is continuously being adapted for diverse environments.