Berhampur: SRI (System of Rice Intensification) method of paddy cultivation can help check climate change and benefit the farmers as it consumes less water in comparison to other methods of cultivation. ...In Ganjam district hundreds of acres are left uncultivated [due to climate change]. In this situation, the district project management unit under the Berhampur Forest department is laying stress on SRI cultivation. This has come as a relief for the distressed farmers fed up with crop loss and reduced output in the traditional method of cultivation. SRI method of cultivation is being implemented in the district with the support of the state government, the Green Climate Fund, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Farmers think that this new method is helping them raise their crops without hassle.
…This year over 900 farmers in Chikiti, Rangeilunda, Khallikote and Ganjam blocks have taken up SRI. Assisted by two voluntary outfits Lipika and Pallishree and supervised by 30 experts, an additional 870 farmers have taken up SRI on 200 acre of farmland. The cultivation was initially started by training the farmers in 39 villages
"SMI stands for System of Millet Intensification. It is similar to SRI (System of Rice Intensification) in rice. This method of agronomic practice is to enhance productivity and to increase the production in Millets. Now SMI in Finger Millet is practiced by most of the farmers in Odisha under Odisha Millet Mission. This practice is getting popular in the farmer field because it is giving promising yield as compared to the traditional method. Generally, this method is followed only for Finger Millet. But this year I made a trial with Barnyard Millet and the performance is good. Let us see the package of practices followed in SMI..."
SMI is an acronym for System of Millet Intensification. This method has been developed on the lines of the SRI (System of Rice Intensification) for paddy with emphasis on root intensification. It leads to lower seed requirement, easier intercultural operations, more tillers and panicles.
Farmers have been experiencing higher yield under SMI method, upto 20-25 quintals per hectare. Some farmers have experienced yield of over 30 quintals per hectare as well. The Odisha Millets Mission is promoting SMI for Ragi.
"..When it comes to paddy cultivation, most of the farmers continue to opt for age-old agricultural practices, that are high on labour and input cost, but low on quality and yield. Seeing this as an impediment to the growth of paddy production and to improve the livelihood of small and marginal farmers, Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) at Sukinda has been promoting SRI method of paddy cultivation. This method has been widely acknowledged and accepted as a cost effective and water friendly way to cultivate paddy and obtain higher yields. For the last five years, Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS), the CSR wing of Tata Steel at Sukinda has been extensively training and encouraging farmers to turn to SRI. Village level as well as institutional training programmes on SRI have also been organised."
"...When the performance of a particular technology is discussed," says Sabarmatee," people narrow down their focus on yield and cost." However, she argues, the importance and the impact of SRI goes far beyond the simple economic factors that are usually considered in assessing a technology. The reduced weight of the younger seedlings is literally a reduced burden on women who would typically carry around 24 bundles at a time, that she calculated weigh an average of 1.5 kg each. Furthermore, the reduction the number of seedlings transplanted under SRI reduces the amount of time spent bending over and frees up time for the cultivation of other nutritious crops.. .they really do the work in less time and in SRI you don't have very flooded conditions and you don't have to be inside the field for a longer time..."
SRI-Rice's insight:
Read more about Phumani and other women's experiences working in the field.. and their feeling about SRI at http://sri4women.org/phumani/
...When asked if SRI is laborious and demanding in terms of labour, she responds, “No, my daughters-in-law and I do all the work. As you can see we are weeding using the weeder and we don’t have to hire labour”. It is interesting to see that women proactively do almost all the work related to paddy cultivation under SRI. Gacherigaon village has earned a new identity in the entire block; it is now known as “the SRI village”. All the farmers have become master trainers now and Majhi is frequently invited by the government agriculture department to educate other farmers about SRI.
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.
Authors: Debashish Sen, Ravindra Adusumilli, Sabarmatee. Presentation at the Conference on Contested Agronomy, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK, Feb. 23-25, 2016.
Research article: Thakur, Amod K., Rajeeb K. Mohanty, Rajbir Singh, and Dhiraj U. Patil. 2015. Enhancing water and cropping productivity through Integrated System of Rice Intensification (ISRI) with aquaculture and horticulture under rainfed conditions. Agricultural Water Management 161: 65-76. doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2015.07.008 [Contact us if you need access.]
Poster presented at the 4th International Rice Congress, bangkok, Thailand, October 27-31, 2014. Authors: Amod Thakur, Rajeeb Kumar Mohanty and Ashwani Kumar
SRI-Rice's insight:
In this poster, Amod and colleagues talk about how climate-resilient upland rice production systems are needed to enhance the productivity of both land and water.
Congratulations to Sabarmatee and her father, Professor Radha Mohan, who have been conferred with the prestigious Padma Shri Award – a recognition for their decades-long efforts to transform a barren land into a lush food forest in Odisha’s Nayagarh district. There Sabarmatee, a long-time SRI champion, uses System of Rice Intensification methods to conserve 500 indigenous varieties of rice, which she shares through her "Adopt a Seed" program.Â
 Award for Highest SRI Yield[Jan. 27, 2020] Tamil Nadu State awards included a special award for obtaining the highest paddy yield with the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), which was presented to S Yuvakumar, a farmer from Kunnangattu Valasu, Pasuvapatti village in Erode district.
The effect of crop establishment methods involving system of rice intensification and conventional method (SRI and CT) with rice based cropping systems on soil water holding capacity and water use efficiency of the system were studied in a tropical rainfed agro-ecosystem. Changes in soil water holding capacity was measured after 5 years of establishing different soil management strategies. The soil water holding capacity was readily altered and improved under SRI practice with application of organic matter as compared to the conventional system. Practice of SRI increased the WHC of soil from initial value of 37.6 percent to 41.2 percent with concomitant decrease in the WHC of the soil under conventional system (38.5 percent). Water use efficiency (WUE) was higher under SRI method of stand establishment (70.8 kg REY ha-cm-1) than the than CT (67.0 kg REY ha-cm-1). The use of single young seedlings, reduced plant densities, use of mechanical weederand alternate wetting and drying in SRI method of rice establishment helps in soil aeration, enhanced organic matter, improved soil physico-chemical and biological properties of the soil leading to higher productivity of succeeding crops in a sequence.
Sabarmatee, the founder of the NGO Sambhav in Odisha and long-time SRI advocate, was conferred with ‘Nari Shakti Award’, India’s highest civilian honour for women. She received the award from the President of India, Ramnath Kovind, in New Delhi, on International Women's Day. Her NGO has organic training farms, where the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is adapted to make it easier for women working in farmlands. The NGO is also credited with conserving and producing 452 indigenous varieties of rice, and converting 90 acres of wasteland into a forest.
SRI-Rice's insight:
Sabarmatee explains some of her work on the effects of agricultural work on women in the video "Phumani:" https://vimeo.com/250170389
Sunil Kumar Ghadei (28), a management graduate is among the many young professionals who are slowly but surely making their way into the rural fields of Odisha with the commitment to bring in a change in the agri scenario of the State. .. “We have been trying to restore the eroding indigenous farming practices and crop varieties through promotion of mixed, bio-diverse, improved crop production techniques such as the system of rice intensification (SRI) and system of crop intensification (SCI) and sustainable agriculture practices. The learning derived from these sessions will be used to conduct a series of awareness and training camps for small and marginal farmers on sustainable agriculture practices in different rural areas of the state,” explained Sunil.
Tata Trusts & KarmYog partnership extends to scaling awareness and education of innovative agricultural practices such as System of Rice Intensification
..Through its novel venture, GKEL has set an example of harmonious co-existence of both industry and agriculture. Farmers are mainly into paddy cultivation using the SRI (System of Rice Intensification) methodology, which yields handsome returns.
Vedanta Limited’s Aluminium business unit at Lanjigarh has bagged the prestigious 5th Annual Greentech CSR Award. Among the Vendata's Aajeevika projects (Krushak Bandhu) are farmers’ clubs and an SRI project on 100 acres with 74 farmers developed over the past 2 years.
System for Rice Intensification (SRI), a technique of paddy cultivation, is being successfully used for cultivation of other crops including vegetables by small farmers in Ganjam district of Odisha.
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