Experiences of Farmers in India Experiences of Farmers in ... - AgSri
Experiences of Farmers in India Experiences of Farmers in ... - AgSri
Experiences of Farmers in India Experiences of Farmers in ... - AgSri
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agencies to br<strong>in</strong>g out similar farmers’ experiences from their regions, <strong>in</strong> order to<br />
address some <strong>of</strong> the issues, bottlenecks and policy changes required to promote<br />
SRI even more extensively.<br />
Paddy cultivation is not the same <strong>in</strong> <strong>India</strong> after SRI. <strong>Farmers</strong> are try<strong>in</strong>g,<br />
experiment<strong>in</strong>g and modify<strong>in</strong>g the method to suit local conditions; it can be either<br />
age <strong>of</strong> seedl<strong>in</strong>gs or the design <strong>of</strong> weeders. What is SRI and what is not SRI is not<br />
important, what is more important is that SRI has changed the way farmers look<br />
at the Rice plant. This is only the beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g. Millions <strong>of</strong> <strong>India</strong>n farmers with this<br />
knowledge and experience <strong>in</strong> SRI will not only change their practice <strong>of</strong> us<strong>in</strong>g the<br />
resources but will force the establishment to <strong>in</strong>vest <strong>in</strong> such methods that will lead to<br />
achiev<strong>in</strong>g food security and promot<strong>in</strong>g efficient use <strong>of</strong> land and water.<br />
We thank all the farmers who have shared their experiences and those<br />
people who have taken great effort to help us <strong>in</strong> collect<strong>in</strong>g and compil<strong>in</strong>g their case<br />
studies, without which this book would not have been possible.<br />
I would like to express my appreciation for Dr. N. Loganandhan, my colleague<br />
who has undertaken this task <strong>of</strong> compil<strong>in</strong>g the <strong>in</strong>formation as his first assignment<br />
after jo<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the team at Hyderabad and other staff members for putt<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> long<br />
hours.<br />
We <strong>in</strong>vite organizations and <strong>in</strong>dividuals to take time to compile such<br />
<strong>in</strong>formation and put it on websites facilitat<strong>in</strong>g the flow <strong>of</strong> <strong>in</strong>formation. We hope<br />
the farmers’ experiences presented <strong>in</strong> this book are go<strong>in</strong>g to <strong>in</strong>spire everyone,<br />
particularly researchers to re-visit their own methods <strong>of</strong> evaluat<strong>in</strong>g agriculture <strong>in</strong><br />
general and SRI <strong>in</strong> particular.<br />
Our suggestion to policy-makers is the same as the 100 year old grandmother<br />
<strong>of</strong> SRI farmer Anil Changmai said: build more granaries to store the <strong>in</strong>creased<br />
production <strong>of</strong> paddy by adopt<strong>in</strong>g SRI. So <strong>in</strong>stead <strong>of</strong> spend<strong>in</strong>g money on large and<br />
expensive irrigation projects to divert water, we need to produce more rice with less<br />
water. These farmers are show<strong>in</strong>g the way.<br />
Dr Biksham Gujja<br />
Policy Advisor<br />
WWF International, Switzerland<br />
v