Experiences of Farmers in India Experiences of Farmers in ... - AgSri

Farmers’ Experiences
Innovations and modifications
Girish had facility of pump, diesel engine and pipeline. During the critical water
stress period, he gave a critical irrigation to SRI plot at the time of grain filling stage.
It resulted in tremendous increase in the yield i.e. 38 q/acre. Such critical irrigation
requirements, where SRI is being adopted in rain-fed upland areas where crop
is likely to face water stress, should be fulfilled to get maximum benefits of SRI
method.
Benefits
Increase in yield and reduction in seed requirement.
Constraints in adoption
In the first year, when promotion of SRI was done along with Vermicompost
application, farmers found it to be more time consuming. He also felt that it
required skill at the level of every family members who are engaged in various
stages of rice crop.
There was more requirement for labour at the time of transplanting as the
transplanting required more labour than the conventional method.
As the farmers are habituated to do weeding in rice crop as per the conventional
method, farmers found weeding practiced in SRI very tedious.
Lessons learnt
Girish learnt some aspects of SRI i.e. more spacing and line transplanting.
It is learnt from this experience that promotion of SRI requires continuous follow
up and training for the farmers at least for 2-3 years, since it requires more
knowledge building at the level of farmers than actual support to them.
Knowledge building about SRI should be a continuous process rather than on
time training and demonstration activity for the farmers.
A participatory monitoring and evaluation of SRI would help to facilitate the
process of knowledge building about SRI at the level of extension worker and
farmers alike.
There is also a need to work on detailed scheduling of activities in SRI since rain
fed SRI depends on the monsoon.
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