SRI Updates /System of Rice Intensifcation

The System of Rice Intensification
- SRI -

A collaborative effort of Association Tefy Saina and CIIFAD

Home

2002 Updates
(also see 2003 updates and recent news by country)

SRI CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
Proceedings are now available from the first international conference on SRI - Assessments of the System of Rice Intensification. The proceedings can be read on-line or downloaded from the Web as a single pdf file or as individual articles. Requests for the CD ROM version should be directed to CIIFAD. The conference was held at Sanya, China, April 1-4, 2002, with 50 international participants and 60 Chinese participants, who came to share and evaluate experience with SRI in different countries. It was organized by the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development, and the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center and co-sponsored by Association Tefy Saina, Madagascar, and the China National Rice Research Institute.

Reports were presented from researchers, NGOs, farmers and/or administrators in 17 countries. A summary of yield data from 10 of these countries from which there were enough data (59 data sets) to calculate some comparisons, showed average yields with SRI about 7.3 t/ha, compared with an average of about 4.3 t/ha for controls/comparisons. The average of maximum yields was 10.5 t/ha, with maxima from Cambodia, China, Madagascar and Sri Lanka well above this.

SRI ARTICLE in AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS
"A review of agricultural research issues raised by the system of rice intensification (SRI) from Madagascar: Opportunities for improving farming systems for resource-poor farmers", a 25-page article recently published in the journal Agricultural Systems, is also available on-line from the Elsevier Science website. (Online access to full text articles for Agricultural Systems is available to those readers whose library has subscribed to Agricultural Systems via ScienceDirect Digital Collections, or, has a current print subscription to Agricultural Systems and has registered for ScienceDirectWeb Editions.)

The article was authored by Willem A. Stoop, Norman Uphoff and Amir Kassam and can be located in:
Agricultural Systems, 71 (3) (2002) pp. 249-274

LABOR-SAVING WEEDER
H. M. Premaratna in Sri Lanka who has been pioneering SRI innovations and training in that country since 1999 has developed a new weeder design that greatly reduces the time needed to do a soil-aerating, weed-removing operation.

Depending on the soil, its water status, amount of weed growth, etc., weeding an acre can take 5-10 days. The new weeder Premaratna says can reduce this to 1-2 days. (Click on image to see enlargement.)

This is because the "teeth" of the new weeder, similar to the cono-weeder used in South India, do not get clogged with mud that needs to be removed, and because this weeder is always pushed forward -- not pushed and pulled, forward and backward, as done for removing weeds and aerating the soil with most hand weeders previously manufactured.

Technical drawings are being prepared, to be put on this page, but blacksmiths may be able to fabricate weeders from the picture provided here. There can be adaptation of designs to suit better certain soil conditions, the gender of the user, etc. We invite SRI users who make improvements on weeding and other operations to send this information to us to share with others around the world.

*Return to top*

Tefy Saina

CIIFAD

TropSCORE

MOIST