The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : SRI method a boon for ryots

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

SRI method a boon for ryots

Staff Reporter

Farmers share views at a meeting

HYDERABAD: A meeting of farmers, who adopted SRI method of rice cultivation on Monday, felt that the method was a boon for a State like Andhra Pradesh suffering from drought and extreme water scarcity and the Government should popularise it.

The farmers expressed the view at "Dialogue on merits and demerits of SRI method of paddy cultivation", organised by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International Dialogue Project in association with the Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU).

About 250 paddy cultivators from 10 districts in the State shared their experiences at the meeting.

Stronger plants

The SRI method, also called the Madagascar method, is based on minimum input for maximum gain.

Unlike the regular paddy cultivation, the saplings here are sown at wider distance with alternate wetting and drying of the field than flooding of water.

The plant here grows stronger and also withstands disease thus reducing fertiliser input.

Farmers spoke about the positive aspects of SRI and also a few constraints, mostly technological.

First timers like Ram Reddy (Adilabad) and Rama Devi (Ranga Reddy district) said they had seen encouraging results and were willing to try it out in the next crop too.

Another farmer said the SRI method had increased the output by at least three times compared to normal paddy.

Some farmers wanted technical experts to design farmer-friendly rotary weeders with electric motors.

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