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- SRI - A collaborative effort of Association Tefy Saina and CIIFAD |
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Madagascar
Progress
and Activities • Prof. Robert Randriamiharisoa, while director of research for the Faculty of Agriculture (ESSA) at the University of Antananarivo, began working with Tefy Saina and CIIFAD in 1997 on the scientific evaluation of SRI through student thesis research assisted by Tefy Saina and CIIFAD. A number of the theses, in French language, are posted in the Research section. Randriamiharisoa became head of the ESSA Department of Agriculture and continued innovative research particularly on biological N fixation with SRI. He presented reports on this research to the Sanya international conference: BNF summary, factorial trial results, Mondava thesis, Anjomakely thesis, Beforona research , weeding-compost trials, Ratooning-inoculation trials. Sadly and most unfortunately, Prof. Robert passed away in August, 2004, having in a few years made the largest initial contribution to advancing the scientific understanding of SRI. We are greatly indebted to him. • In 1998, Bruno Andrianaivo, senior rice specialist with FOFIFA, the government's agency for agricultural and rural development, began working with Tefy Saina, the University and CIIFAD on SRI evaluation, including an adaptation of SRI concepts and practices to upland rice production which has been taken up in the Philippines. which has been taken up in the Philippines. In November 1999, the Rockefeller Foundation made a grant to the consortium of Tefy Saina, the University, FOFIFA and CIIFAD to do research on SRI and its dissemination which lasted until 2003. (see FOFIFA 2000-2001 report, FOFIFA final report, and Consortium final report). • In 2000, Catholic Relief Services began to disseminate SRI in 8 dioceses of Madagascar, keeping detailed records on yield results. In 2001, average yields with traditional practice were 1.5 t/ha; those practicing Level 1 SRI (1 or 2 practices) achieved 2.4 t/ha; those at Level 2 (3 or 4 practices) averaged 3.7 t/ha; while those at Level 3 (all 5 practices) got 4.2 t/ha. Maximum yields for these four groups were: 3.0, 3.2, 7.5 and 15.0 t/ha. ADRA and other NGOs have also begun to disseminate SRI. • CIIFAD promoted SRI in the Landscape Development Interventions (LDI) project funded by USAID and implemented by Chemonics International. This was done through the network of farmer associations known as Kolo Harena. An evaluation of results by George Rakontondrabe, responsible for LDI monitoring, will be available soon. • An evaluation of SRI adoption and disadoption was done by Christine Moser for a master's thesis in agricultural economics at Cornell. Moser studied five villages in the Ranomafana and Fianarantsoa areas and found disadoption to be around 40%; and in one village to be 100%. It appeared that SRI dissemination and maintenance depended heavily on extension support. An important and somewhat unexpected finding was that really poor households could not afford to adopt SRI practices even though these would give them higher yield because they needed to assure daily income to meet subsistence needs, and could not invest the additional labor required for SRI in the short run to get its higher returns some months later (see article in Agricultural Systems). This is a different finding than in the IWMI evaluation of SRI in Sri Lanka, where poorer households were as likely to adopt SRI as were richer ones, and more likely to continue with SRI. • The rate of disadoption reported from Moser's field study does not appear to be general in Madagascar. An evaluation of rice production in a French-supported irrigation project in the high-plateau areas around Antsirabe and Ambositra (1994/5-1998/9) found that without much extension effort, the area under SRI expanded from 34.5 ha to 542.8 ha. Average SRI yields over the five-year period were 8.55 t/ha, compared to 3.77 t/ha with the government-recommended System of Rice Improvement (SRA) using fertilizer and other modern methods, and 2.36 t/ha with farmer practice (see data from 2000 report). • In 2000-2001, Joeli Barison and Oloro McHugh conducted joint research on SRI for Cornell master's theses in agronomy and agricultural engineering, studying the experience of 107 farmers in four areas of Madagascar who were using both SRI and standard methods, so that inter-farm and inter-farmer differences could be controlled. These studies gave a more detailed understanding of soil, nutrient, water management and other factors with SRI. An analysis using the QWEFTS model found that, for the same uptake of N, P or K, SRI plants gave double the yield as conventionally-grown plants. (See Barison thesis, Barison article, McHugh et al paper). • With
further analysis of the data gathered by Barison and McHugh, Barrett
et al. (2003) concluded that SRI is an 'unambiguously superior technology.'
An innovative methodology for assessing sources of productivity
estimated that half of the 88% increase in yield with SRI practices
for these 107 farmers WAS attributable to the adoption of SRI techniques
on a ceteris paribus basis. The other half was attributable to differences
in 'farmer quality,' which could also be interpreted as meaning
'best use' of SRI practices. (AJAE article)
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last updated: April 12, 2008
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