System of Rice Intensification

http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=2297

Alternative planting method key to rice self-sufficiency

Posted by: Alecks P. Pabico | April 21, 2008 at 4:25 pm

EVEN as the government continues to insist that there is no rice supply shortage but only an abnormal increase in the price of the staple owing to soaring world market prices of commodities, the fact is the country is not 100-percent self-sufficient in rice.

As it is only able to produce 90 percent of the rice it needs, the Philippines has had to import the grain from other rice-exporting countries every year. For this year, the government is importing 2.1 million metric tons to maintain its two-month inventory.

To be sure, the Philippines has been resorting to rice importation over the last half-century. Since 2001, however, rice imports have grown to 1.32 million metric tons every year, making the country the number one rice importer in the world.

But to farmers and NGO advocates who have been propagating a rice planting method developed in Madagascar back in 1983, rice self-sufficiency is not only not impossible to attain, the government need not have to resort to importation to feed almost 90 million Filipinos.

The method they are using is called System of Rice Intensification (SRI), discovered by a French Jesuit agriculturist, Fr. Henri de Laulanie, in the course of his collection of the rice-growing practices of Madagascar’s farmers to increase their yields. Successfully tested in over 25 countries, SRI has been found to increase yields by 20 percent or more, and reduces farmers’ costs from seeds, water and external inputs (use of chemical fertilizers and other toxic chemicals).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_of_Rice_Intensification

"The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a method of increasing the yield of rice produced in farming. It was invented in 1983 by the French Jesuit Father Henri de Laulanie in Madagascar. However full testing of the system did not occur until some years later. The productivity of SRI is under debate between supporters and critics of the system."