Coimbatore, Dec 1 : With an additional two million tonnes of rice required annually to feed the Indian population population, System of Rice Intensification (SRI) could help achieve the goal of food security by the year 2015, a top official of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research said in Coimbatore today.
Since rice production accounted for 93 million tonnes this year, India may require at least an additional 20 million tonnes by 2015. By adopting SRI method in at least 25 per cent of the irrigated area- 43 million hectares - rice productivity could be improved to 20 million tonnes and water consumption reduced to 25 per cent by 2015, Dr B C Viraktamath, project director, Directorate of Rice Research, ICAR, told reporters here.
He pointed out that the buffer stock in India has declined to 20 million tonnes from 60 million tonnes and that no nation was willing to export rice,fearing shortage in the near future Dr Biksham Gujja, Policy advisor, World Wide Fund for Nature International,said TamilNadu has shown the way to other states by adopting SRI in 30 per cent of total rice area, with farmers achieving yield of 9 to 11 tonnes per hectare.
Though there was exact data on adoption of SRI in the country, 220 districts out of 560 districts were practicing it with a high success rate, Gujja said.
Dr G S G Ayyangar, Joint Secretary and Advisor (mitigation projects and capacity building), National Disaster Management Authority, Union Home ministry, said Tripura, where he served as agriculture secretary till four months back, has adopted the system successfully.
Tripura has brought 30,000 acres under SRI this year and planned to cover 50,000 acre this year, Ayyangar said, adding that by utilising one-third of the water, productivity can be doubled by the SRI practice and net income of a farmer increased substantially. Ayyangar refused to talk on other topics like the recent terror attack in Mumbai.
Dr L G Giri Rao, Director of Extension, Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University, Hyderabad, said that the system was introduced in Andhra Pradesh in 1500 acres initially.Farmers were very happy to extract additional yield with lesser water, seeds and also land.
Virakatamath said that the system was not variety or hybrid specific and farmers could use any type of seed to get higher productivity, with less usage of fertilizers.
Despite these qualities, the system was yet to pick up and popularised among farmers across the Country. Only Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh have adopted the system, he said.
Gujja said almost all the NGOs working for the success of the system wanted to push it to the Government, which has already sanctioned rs.One crore for each district, to set up a National SRI Mission, for further research and development.
Dr Norman Uphoff, scientist, Cornell University, USA,also global ambassador for SRI, said that this was not a technology but an opportunity for farmers to increase productivity.
The officials were here to attend a three-day symposium on 'SRI in India, Policies, Institutions and Strategies for scaling up.' Uphoff said that the system could also be utilised for other crops like wheat and sugarcane. (Agencies)
Dec 01, 2008
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