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

about 100 years old, too noticed the potential of SRI and jokingly suggested him to
build another granary next year before planting all his 3.7 acres. Of course, when he
was planting 10-day old seedlings, others laughed at his madness, but those who
ridiculed him are now to go for SRI next year.
In Uttarakhand, in the hills, landholdings are small. Food security of the
poorest of the poor in the hills can only be met by improving the productivity of
their land. Chain Singh from Tehri Gharwal district tried SRI in 0.05 acre (one nali)
last year and 0.13 acre (2.5 nali) this year. With SRI method he doubled the yields.
His 0.13 acre area has given him 220 kg, which works out 4.4 t/acre. In Himachal
Pradesh, another mountain terrain, Chamaru Ram started SRI with 0.05 acre and
is practicing now in his entire area of 0.8 acre (8 karnals) improving the yields from
1.1 to 1.8 t/acre, again improving his household food security. Merugu Naryana
of Mahabubnagar district in A.P could improve yields under bore-well irrigation by
nearly 30 percent by practicing SRI. Tapan Sen from Tripura has an experience of
nine seasons with SRI since 2003. He gradually increased the area under SRI from
0.4 acre to 1.2 acre. He demonstrated that yields could be obtained up to 3.8 t/
acre.
The story of V.K.V. Ravichandran, from Thiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu,
is somewhat different. He is a farmer with 60 acres, educated and well-informed.
He not only improvised SRI practice to suite his specific agro-climatic conditions
but also became a regular contributor to the SRI Newsletter, SRI India website and
Google groups.
Most of these farmers do have problems and issues. But they come out with
suggestions for improving the situation. For example, for Chamaru Ram if the weeder
is an issue, for Tapan Sen labour and difficulty in weeding. For Ravichandran, field
preparation, particularly to drain excess water, is an important issue. Planting young
seedlings could be risky during the rainy season. For Chain Singh, transplanting is
very easy.
Earlier we have published Andhra Pradesh SRI Farmers’ Experiences in
Telugu, but this book is a national effort. The purpose of publishing it in English is
to put farmers’ experiences in SRI on the national and international sphere so that
researchers, scientists and policy-makers can have access to the information. By
no means is this complete or representative of all SRI experiences in India. But
an effort has been taken to cover most of the prominent SRI states, in spite of the
time constraint in compiling the case studies. We request other organizations and
iv