Alternative Paths to Food Security - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 204

under the broad heading of “low-input intensification” in a study commissioned by the
European Parliament (Meyer 2009), and as “sustainable intensification” in a report for
the British Royal Society (Royal Society 2009). SRI is thus not an isolated example, but
rather an exemplification of the “agroecological intensification” discussed by Nelson
and Coe in their chapter “Agroecological Intensification of Smallholder Farming,
Chapter 4 of this volume.”
The chapter also reports on recent research that documents beneficial symbiotic asso-
ciations between plants and microbes (section 4). These could help explain the pheno-
typical results achieved with SRI management practices. We will consider also how other
crops, such as wheat, sugarcane, finger millet, teff, mustard (rapeseed), and even some
pulses and vegetables, are benefiting from extensions or extrapolations of SRI ideas and
practices (section 5). What is being learned from SRI experience is not relevant only
for rice. Agroecological methods represent a departure from genocentric strategies for
raising agricultural production that rely heavily on agrochemical inputs (section 6),
although this departure has not been without controversy (section 7). Broader implica-
tions for politics and society are discussed in the concluding section. The sources for this
article are more varied and more contemporary than for most academic presentations
because the SRI phenomenon is “a work in progress.”
The System of Rice Intensification
This methodology for agroecological crop management resulted from three decades
of observation and experimentation in Madagascar by a French Jesuit, Fr. Henri de
Laulanié. Working closely with Malagasy farmers from 1961 to 1995, he studied carefully
what conditions could best support their rice plants. Modifying age-old practices such
as dense planting and continuous flooding led to rice phenotypes that were not only
more productive, but also had more resistance to various stresses, from pests and dis-
eases to adverse climatic events like drought or storms.
With SRI, what is “intensified” is not farmers' use of purchased inputs (new seeds,
chemical fertilizers, crop protectants, and more water). That is how intensification
is usually understood (Reichardt et al. 1998). What are in fact intensified with SRI
practice are knowledge, skill, and management. Although initially SRI can be more
labor-intensive while the methods are being learned, once these are mastered, labor
inputs can generally be reduced. In many countries a major selling point for SRI is its
reduction in farmers' labor expenditure, while requiring also less seed, water, fertilizer,
and other inputs (Xu et al. 2005). Intensification with SRI is more mental than material.
Evidence of these effects continues to accumulate, some getting published in the
peer-reviewed agronomic literature after earlier resistance (e.g., Ceesay et al. 2006;
Chapagain and Yamaji 2010; Lin et al. 2009; Mishra and Salokhe 2008, 2010; Thakur
2010; Thakur, Rath, et al. 2010, Thakur, Uphoff, and Antony 2010; Zhao et al. 2009,
2010). Most evidence thus far has come from field reports from nongovernmental