New approaches are needed for another Green Revolution “Agriculture in the twenty-first century will need to change considerably from the technologies and paradigms that evolved in the preceding century.” Norman Uphoff, Cornell University This record yield is less significant, however, than two other statistics. First, the rice area under SRI methods in Bihar has risen from 30 hectares in 2007 to more than 300,000 in 2012, a 10,000-fold increase in five years. Second, even without all of the farmers following SRI recommendations fully, their average SRI yield in 2012 was calculated by government technicians as 8.08 tonnes per hectare — three times the usual yield in Bihar. These figures and differences are so large that SRI can no longer be ignored by sceptics and critics. They come from farmers fields and from official reports, not from experimental stations and partisan sources. Winning the argument Published criticisms of SRI have ebbed since 2006, with the benefits from SRI now demonstrated in more than 50 countries. But initial opinions die hard, even as governments in Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, where two-thirds of the worlds rice is produced, have begun supporting the spread of SRI, based on farmers experiences and scientific evidence. It is time to put the controversy over SRI behind us. And it is time to begin learning more about how these new ideas and methods can help get more from less. For instance, we have begun to learn how microorganisms that live mutualistically within plant organs and tissues, and even cells, bring benefits such as increasing the chlorophyll levels in leaves and protecting against pathogens in roots. [7,8] Learning from farmers Importantly, experience with SRI in countries such as Burundi, Cuba, India, Madagascar, Nepal and Rwanda is helping us to better understand how to learn from and with farmers. Some very informative and impressive videos are now available where farmers themselves explain their good experiences with these new methods. [9] Farmers have been adapting and improving the methods to which they were introduced, and they have been disseminating their knowledge and experience to other farmers — changing the usual linear from lab to land model of developing and transmitting innovations. SRI is one of the few innovations where scientists have had difficulty replicating farmers results in their on-station trials — usually the situation is reversed. Farmers may be getting higher yields than the researchers do because, more often than not, farmers soils have less impairment from fertiliser and agrochemical applications than on experiment plots. Changing times need changing practices Agriculture in the twenty-first century will need to change considerably from the technologies and paradigms that evolved in the preceding century. Conditions are becoming increasingly different from the past. The need to change should not be taken as derogation of past research and practices.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 19:50:05 +0000
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