Konda Mason is the founder of Jubilee Justice, a nonprofit that helps small-holder Black farmers in the South grow specialty rice with a dryland adaptation of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), a methodology originally developed in Madagascar. For Mason, rice represents a way to transform lives and reclaim the past, offering a path toward racial, economic, and climate justice. Jubilee Justice’s rice program, called the Black Farmers Cohort, currently consists of 10 farmers from Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Kentucky.
“We are basically figuring it out year by year,” explained Erika Styger, director of the Climate-Resilient Farming Systems Program at Cornell University. Jublilee Justice is the only organization in the U.S. “actively implementing and systematically researching the [SRI] method organically, regeneratively, and in collaboration with multiple farmers,” she said.
The Jubilee Justice Black Farmers' Rice Project, launched in 2020, supports smallholder Black farmers to grow organic, regenerative, specialty rice. The rice is processed and marketed through their own cooperative with support from Jubilee Justice.
After Konda Mason, founder of Jubilee Justice, learned of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), she was emboldened by the idea that Black farmers could lead the development of growing regenerative, organic rice systems using the SRI method. In 2020, Mason joined forces with Erika Styger, an SRI expert at Cornell University, organic farmer Mark Fulford, and Iriel Edwards, 2020 Cornell graduate and first farm manager for Jubilee Justice.
Konda Mason is co-founder and president of Jubilee Justice, a non-profit dedicated to regenerative agriculture, racial justice, cooperative practices, and healing the wounds of Black American land loss and racism. They are in the fourth year of a rice-growing program, the system of rice intensification (SRI), a dry-land technique for growing rice that’s healthy for land and consumers and efficient and productive for farmers.
(This podcast is a collaboration between Quivira Coalition and Mary-Charlotte Domandi of Radio Cafe.)
The Plant-ness of the Plantis an interview with Erika Styger that appears in the February 2023 issue of ACRES USA magazine. It can also be accessed here: https://tinyurl.com/prebh7xw on Dr. Styger's Climate Resilient Farming Systems website.
The System of Rice/Crop Intensification utilizes simple principles to provide plants an ideal growing environment. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is an agronomic approach that was serendipitously discovered in Madagascar by a French priest and popularized by a university in New York, utilizing a discovery — made by Japanese scientists in the 1930s but, probably due to WWII, never translated into English — that follows the pattern in nature we now call the Fibonacci sequence. This is the unlikely and fascinating story of SRI — a set of principles that has enable increased profitability and improved yields for growers of rice and other crops across the world since the 1980s. It is only now beginning to be picked up among growers in industrialized nations like the United States.... https://tinyurl.com/prebh7xw
Lotus Foods, the leading heirloom and organic rice and rice noodle company is pleased to announce the nationwide launch of Rice Is Life, the first cookbook from company founders and rice visionaries Caryl Levine and Ken Lee. Written with acclaimed cookbook author Kristin Donnelly, Rice Is Life celebrates the world’s most important staple food through 65 easy-to-cook recipes as well as essays on rice culture, including SRI, and the importance of sustainable rice agriculture, showing how rice plays a part in uplifting people worldwide.
SRI-Rice's insight:
This book contains essays on SRI by Ken, Caryl, and Olivia Vent, as well as many excellent SRI photos by Sue Price, Erika Styger and others. Congratulations to all who worked on this appetizing publication!
...In the US, a handful of small farms are experimenting with System of Rice Intensification (SRI) techniques in dryland rice systems. Purple Mountain Organics and Next Step Produce in the Mid-Atlantic have been doing it for years, along with Blue Moon Acres in the Northeast. In collaboration with the non-profit Jubilee Justice, Erika Styger's latest project is working with Black farmers in the South to develop SRI systems that perform well where they're growing, in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina.
In the end, one sustainable system for growing rice may look very different from another, depending on the local climate and scale. For the shopper trying to support more sustainable rice production, a label might not provide all of the answers, but understanding what organic, SRI, and improved conventional systems look like can help you seek out farms and brands that talk about how they're implementing those practices. And overall, improving production practices with a crop as important as rice from a variety of angles will not only reduce its negative environmental impacts but will contribute to long-term climate resilience and food security.
Can rice be grown in the southern United States using much less water with the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method? That's the question Konda Mason sought to answer when she leased two acres on the outskirts of Alexandria to grow 18 varieties of rice using the alternate method...
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...A few years in, [Ken Lee and Caryl Levine of Lotus Foods] were introduced to a new method of rice farming, the System of Rice Intensification (SRI)—a more sustainable way to grow rice using less water, less seed, and no agrochemicals that results in a double yield for farmers. “Learning about SRI and seeing the benefits for people and the environment is when we realized that growing rice organically wasn’t enough, and that we had to rethink altogether how the world grows rice,” explains Levine. “We have to feed the increasing global population with less water, land, and labor. Especially water, our most precious resource.”
And so that became their mission. Partnering with small-scale farmers in several countries, Lee and Levine worked to emphasize better growing practices by applying SRI methods, while also establishing fair and effective supply chains that would lessen environmental impact and create social and economic justice for farmers.
Nfamara Badjie, Mustapha Diedhiou and Dawn Hoyte have successfully grown rice for the past five years at their Ever-Growing Family Farm in New York’s Hudson River Valley. With support from this SARE Farmer grant, we will experiment with two types of rice nurseries, staggered seeding and planting times, and two different varieties.
The objective is to identify robust seedling establishment methods for northeastern rice production to allow to shorten the rice production cycle, and to increase rice productivity and farm benefit. The experiment will compare the Akaogi plug-tray nursery method (seedlings grown in the greenhouse for one month before transplanting) to the simpler, lower-cost Diolla-style raised bed nursery method (seedlings grown in the field and transplanted when 15 days old), which was developed by Nfamara and Mustapha and follows the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) best practices. The two methods will be tested with both the novel African variety Ceenova - the farm’s flagship variety - and the well-established and widely-used Duborskian variety. Erika Styger from Climate-Resilient Farming Systems is an advisor to the project. (See SARE grant)
...the co-founder and joint CEO of US company Lotus Foods, Caryl Levine, told delegates at the Sustainable Food Summit in Amsterdam last week [that] “Conventional rice production is just not sustainable. It uses between one quarter and one third of the world’s fresh water and there is a huge cost of input, which means many farmers are burdened with debt. There is an especially high impact on women. They do most of the physical activity in the paddy fields where they are exposed to parasites and water-borne diseases. After years of harvesting rice, many are unable to walk upright. This is not acceptable.”
Lotus Foods therefore works with farmers to find heirloom rice varieties that are cultivated [by] a sustainable growing process called System of Rice Intensification (SRI). The company, which scooped up second place in Ecovia Intelligence's Sustainable Food Awards last week for being a ‘sustainable pioneer’, sells its products online and throughout the US.
Lotus Foods received an award for Outstanding Value Chain Engagement for its commitment to the development and implementation of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) production within its supply chain, including supplier training consumer education about SRI’s benefits. By keeping the soil in rice fields moist and fertile but not flooded, SRI production significantly increases crop yields, cuts water needs and reduces methane gas (one of the most potent contributors to climate change) emissions by a whopping 40%!
"...The principals of SRI have been applied to other crops, like teff and wheat, under the umbrella term SCI – System of Crop Intensification. The founders of Lotus Foods suggested we look into how SCI might work with fonio. We learned enough to convince us that using SCI techniques will change the equation for smallholder fonio growers in the Sahel. We have just begun the process of exploring the adaptation of those techniques to fonio. We’ve connected some of the leading experts in SCI’s introduction to West Africa with our agronomist partners at SOS Sahel, the NGO that’s helping us establish the world’s first beneficial, commercial scale and grade fonio supply chain. We’ll explain more in future posts about how SCI can address some of the biggest issues we face in making the most of fonio’s potential. Stay tuned!"
It’s late summer and the rice is high and ready for harvest. Nazirahk Amen of Purple Mountain Grown in Maryland (USA) has been growing rice for almost a decade and today he is harvesting one of the seven varieties that he grows and sells. Find our more about how he has adapted the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) for conditions on his farm in Prince Georges County, Maryland.
This presentation by one of the earliest investigators of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) will review the practices, principles and effects of SRI and then some of the initial criticisms and objections. The main focus will be on scientific issues and opportunities that warrant investigation from agricultural science and/or social science perspectives.
SPEAKER: Norman Uphoff, DATE: February 21, 2024, [see video] VENUE: Cornell University, 175 Warren Hall; or, online via zoom ORGANIZERS: Dept. of Global Development, Cornell University. This presentation is part of the "Perspectives in International Development" seminar series
The opening of the Jubilee Justice Specialty Foods and Rice Mill is the culmination of a successful rice experiment benefitting a collective of Black farmers from across the South. The project involves growing rice organically using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI).
Farming is hard and Black farmers have had a foot on their neck for a long time, said Konda Mason, founder and president of Jubilee Justice at a grand opening of the mill held Friday. The non-profit's mission is to help Black farmers become more self-sufficient through cooperative economics. [Read more about the Jubliee Justice's SRI work here: https://www.jubileejustice.org/sri-rice ]
Arkansas farmer Adam Chappell talks about planting less seed for higher profitability.
This is a presentation given by Adam at an Arkansas Soil and Water Education Conference. He describes how he found and adapted SRI ideas to his field, starting with wider spacing and single seeds, which was ultimately more profitable for his farm.
Chef and farmer Matthew Raiford talks about preserving African American cooking and farming...
"I am going to be the first generation free man to plant rice on this land in Brunswick, Georgia. My wife, Tia Raiford, and I are working with the Jubilee Justice project, which helps restore and accelerate Black land ownership. Through their System of Rice Intensification (SRI) sustainable farming methods, we are now understanding our soil, irrigation and cultivation. We hope that by the end of 2022, we should be able to have our first harvest and sell our rice commercially."
Over the last 100 years, the number of Black farmers [in the USA] has dropped precipitously. Jubilee Justice works with Black farmers across the South, currently helping producers in Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi. The goal is to have a closed-loop system that empowers the marginalized farmers. Jubilee Justice’s rice project helps growers foster meaningful and sustainable relationships with the land. ...“What we are promoting is called the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) [method]”. Whereas usual methods of growing rice are water intensive, Konda Mason says that this form of growing rice is a no-till, regenerative approach that uses much less water for more yield.
Lotus Foods, the leading heirloom and organic rice company, is proud to announce that its traditional White and Brown Basmati Rice grown with SRI methods and sourced from family farmers in northern India, has qualified for Regenerative Organic Certified™ (ROC™) Silver. It is the first rice to achieve this rigorous new standard, which goes beyond existing Organic and Fair Trade certifications in promoting farming that enriches rather than degrades soil and values animals and workers.
Lotus Foods Co-Founder/Co-CEO Caryl Levine said "These farmers, who use System of Rice Intensification (SRI) methods, which we call More Crop Per Drop™, have demonstrated that it is very feasible to generate important economic and environmental benefits like increasing yields of traditional varieties, reducing water use and methane emissions and also be regenerative.
Hard to believe that Lotus Foods, a US-based organic rice importer who has been sourcing SRI rice from farmers in Africa and Asia since 2005, has been in the business of preserving rice biodiversity for 25 years! Let's help them celebrate! Read more about Lotus Foods and their founders, Ken and Caryl, in this brochure.
[Watch the video too!] Gambia native Nfamara Badjie grows rice in the Hudson Valley using centuries-old, West African techniques of the Jola people., have been farming rice for 1,000 years. Cornell rice expert Erika Styger is working with Badjie to study which Jola rice techniques work best in the Northeast. “Rice can be part of a new cultural and ecological landscape that adapts to climate change in New York, which makes a lot of sense in so many ways,” said Styger.
Together they are testing how an African rice variety called Ceenowa fares in the Hudson Valley climate when reared in traditional Jola rice nurseries and grown with SRI methods and staggered transplant timings. They integrated some best practices from the SRI system such as transplanting younger and single seedlings. If the SRI/Jola method proves productive, other Northeast farmers would have another technique to try. One thing is clear: Their product is in demand.
In 2013, associate professor Derek Warner began working with the U.S. Navy, supporting their effort to 3-D print flight-critical components for the V-22 Osprey aircraft. After thinking about other applications for custom 3-D printing, he sent an email to Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and received a response from Erika Styger at SRI-Rice. Warner then sent his doctoral student, Wenjia Gu, to Colombia to investigate more. At an SRI gathering of farmers from several South American countries she then had an opportunity to showcase a 3-D printer and a plastic prototype she had printed. It was a rotor that could be used to retrofit a weeder. With rapid prototyping, according to Gu, farmers could quickly test different designs and make adjustments based on trial and error...
A joint entry by SRI-Rice in Ithaca, NY, and Pragati Koraput in India was among the 2018 winners of the Keeling Curve Prize, which is awarded to 10 organizations to recognize the most promising projects that effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions or increase carbon uptake.
The System of Rice Intensification indicates that cutting the water supply in half and reducing the plant population by a factor of ten actually increases rice harvest yields.
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