Combining several innovative practices, SRI is a different way of cultivating rice, including changes in nursery management, in the time of transplantation, and in water and weed management, which could well easily counter the sideeffects of the Green Revolution
Combining several innovative practices, SRI is a different way of cultivating rice, including changes in nursery management, in the time of transplantation, and in water and weed management, which could well easily counter the sideeffects of the Green Revolution
T he System of Rice Intensification (SRI) emerged in the 1980s as a synthesis of locally advantageous rice production practices in Madagascar. Fr Henri de Laulanie, a Jesuit priest who had been working in Madagascar since 1969, integrated the techniques that he saw being used and helped create awareness about the new technique all over the world. Today, SRI has been adopted in many states in India and the response from the farmers has been overwhelming because they have reaped the benefits of the method.
SRI is a combination of several innovative practices, which includes changes in nursery management, the time of transplantation, and water and weed management. It is a different way of cultivating rice though fundamentally the practices remain more or less the same as in the conventional method. There is, in this practice, an emphasis on altering certain agronomic practices of the conventional method of rice cultivation. It is not a fixed package of technical specifications but a system of production with four main components, that is, soil fertility management, planting method, weed control and water (irrigation) management. Several field practices have been developed around these components.