Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Symposium for setting up SRI Promotional Fund

COIMBATORE: To realise the potential of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) for national food security in the context of emerging water crisis, the Central Government should create a special vehicle called “SRI Promotional Fund” with specific budget outlays.

This was the recommendation made by the delegates at the third national symposium on SRI held at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) here recently.

According to a release, the fund is to address constraints like lack of trained human resources, proper tools to suit varied soil and climatic conditions, and water management.

P.L. Gautham, Deputy Director General (Crops), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), said with growing population there was a growing demand to enhance the food security.

He promised that ICAR would always be open for new agricultural solutions that helped farmers and was willing to join hands with organisations for large-scale demonstrations encouraging adoption of SRI.

The symposium re-affirmed that SRI improved the productivity of land, water and labour.

The delegates agreed that it had shown great potential to increase paddy production while significantly reducing the input costs of seed, fertilizers and labour, besides saving substantial quantity of irrigation water.

SRI had spread to 220 districts. National Food Security Mission, a Government programme, had recognised that SRI promotion required large scale knowledge transfer, skill building and work on improving the efficiency of water delivery systems.

There was also a plea that appropriate space must be created for partnership with civil society to promote farmer-to-farmer knowledge, skill transfer, working with community level institutions and effective grass-root facilitation.

Focussed work in potential blocks for intensive promotion of SRI for four to five years may help SRI to take roots and to overcome initial constraints.

More than 350 delegates and farmers from across the country deliberated on the policies, institutions and strategies for scaling up SRI as part of achieving food security and reducing water conflicts.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

PNB meet on prospective entrepreneurs
Training
A non-conformist genius Architects Of Coimbatore
Ninth music festival
Students participate in Articulate Kovai
Rally highlights ill-effects of plastics
National integration camp at Sainik School
Symposium for setting up SRI Promotional Fund
Traffic diversion for ISKCON rath yatra today
Visit
In Coimbatore Today

Copyright © 2009, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu