SRI Global News: May - August 2024 *SRI-Rice -- System of Rice Intensification

A scientific symposium on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) was organized by Directorate of Agricultural Research on August 6, 2024, in the Birah Magrun sub-district of Dokan district (30 km west of Salymania Governorate). More than 75 government officials, technical staff, and rice farmers attended this symposium; ten farmers expressed a desire to try out SRI methods.Khidhir Abbas Hameed presented a seminar entitled “Positive Opportunities of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) under Current Conditions of Climate Change,” which included justifications for implementing SRI in the Kurdistan Region; overview of SRI principles/practices; and the with SRI methods in the Al-Mishkhab Rice Research Station (MRRS) plots and on farmers' fields in central and southern Iraq.

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

• July 31, 2020
• ECHO Asia Small Farm Resource Center & Seed Bank, Thailand
• At ECHO Asia Impact Center, Chiang Mai
  
• http://edn.link/httqmf

A three-day training in Iran on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is being sponsored in May/June by the Central & Western Asia Rice Center (CWARice). The primary trainers will come from Iraq and Iran. The event is intended for rice scientists, rice experts/practitioners and professional rice growers.

February 15, 2019, marked the first Local Farmers, Local Food (LFLF) gathering ever held in Malaysia. This one-of-a-kind event is a gathering of farmers, education professionals, doctors, indigenous peoples, and activists representing eleven of the country’s fourteen states, as well as an international body of volunteers. It was hosted by Sri Lovely, the first and only certified organic rice farm in all of Malaysia, tucked away in the jungle of Kedah, (jelapang padi—Malaysia’s “rice bowl”) and the first Slow Food Community in Malaysia and South East Asia. Captain Zakaria Kamantasha—the CEO of Sri Lovely— has a mantra “if you do good, you get good back”. This mentality seeps into his farming practice in the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method, a more sustainable way of rice production, and his involvement in starting the first Slow Food Community in Malaysia. 

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.