Nalanda District, Bihar: World-Record Sri Yields

Experimenting with SRI cultivation, five farmers of Darveshpura village in Bihar attract considerable attention with their bumper yield; the results indicate a viable alternative to the conventional methods of growing rice and other crops

I nitially, Sumant Kumar’s bumper yield with SRI—quite an achievement—was met with skepticism; but the yield was properly measured and has now been accepted by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) and was acknowledged and confirmed by the Minister of Agriculture in Parliament on 20 March 2012 (http:// www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/agri-biz/article3016481. ece). Four other farmers in the village, also first-time SRI practitioners, achieved paddy yield levels of 18 or 19 tonnes per ha. Sumant Kumar’s achievement was not an isolated occurrence; the accomplishment, therefore, deserves attention.

There is an understandable interest in how these production levels were achieved, how they were measured, and what special conditions might have prevailed. This report provides data from the Bihar Department of Agriculture and from Sumant Kumar himself. More scientific evaluations remain to be conducted on the Darveshpura achievement. We present here what was known at the end of the season about the process and the result.

SRI stands for System of Rice Intensification, a set of principles and practices developed in Madagascar for raising the productivity of the seeds, land, labour, capital and water used in paddy production. SRI does this by altering the way that rice plants, soil, water and nutrients are managed. It does not require farmers to acquire new or improved seeds or chemical fertilizers to raise their yield, although in this case, the rice varieties planted were hybrids and there was an integrated nutrient management, which combined organic and inorganic inputs. SRI has been controversial because of some very large increases in yield (more than 20 tonnes per hectare) that were previously reported from Madagascar when all the recommended practices were used simultaneously as prescribed. This report may reduce some of this controversy because the inputs and the outputs of super-yield production are better documented here than before.