The System of Rice Intensification (SRI)

AGRICULTURE/ ECONOMY

Topic:

• GS-3: Agriculture
• GS-3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI)

About SRI 

• The System of Rice Intensification involves cultivating rice with as much organic manure as possible, starting with young seedlings planted singly at wider spacing in a square pattern; and with intermittent irrigation that keeps the soil moist but not inundated, and frequent inter cultivation with weeder that actively aerates the soil.
• SRI is not a standardised, fixed technological method. 
• It is rather a set of ideas, a methodology for comprehensively managing and conserving resources by changing the way that land, seeds, water, nutrients, and human labour are used to increase productivity from a small but well-tended number of seeds.

SRI is initially labour intensive

• Needs 50% more man-days for transplanting and weeding.
• Mobilises labour to work for profit.
• It offers an alternative to the resource poor, who put in their family labour.
• Once the right skills are learnt and implemented, the labour costs will be lesser.

Benefits of SRI

• Higher yields – Both grain and straw
• Reduced duration (by 10 days)
• Lesser chemical inputs
• Less water requirement
• Less chaffy grain %
• Grain weight increased without change in grain size
• Higher head rice recovery
• Withstand cyclonic gales
• Cold tolerance
• Soil health improves through biological activity

Disadvantages

• Higher labour costs in the initial years
• Difficulties in acquiring the necessary skills
• Not suitable when no irrigation source available