1. Ensuring Food Security
Through
System of Rice Intensification
Scale up Workshop
Funded by:
Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Mumbai
Supported by:
Women Development Corporation, Bihar

2. CONTENTS
1. Context of the workshop
2. Inspiring words of dignatories
3. Challenges in Scaling up of SRI
4. Complied matrix of roles of different agencies for overcoming
challenges in SRI
Annexures
1. Presentation by SRI secretariat – Mr.Tushar Das, Program Manager, SRI Secretariat
2. Presentation by Rice Department- Mr.M.C.Diwaker,Director Directorate of Rice Department

3. India is one of the largest producers of rice in the world; however, rice cultivation in recent
times has suffered from several interrelated problems. Increased yields achieved during the
green revolution through input intensive methods of high water and fertilizer use in well
endowed regions are showing signs of stagnation and concomitant environmental problems
due to salinisation and water-logging of fields (the grain bowls of India Punjab and Haryana are
some of the worst affected).
The System of Rice Intensification, or SRI, is a system that has evolved over the last few decades
of the 20th century and offers a radical departure in the way of growing more rice with fewer
inputs. It was developed in Madagascar Fr. Henri De Laulanié, a French priest with a
background in agriculture and passion for rural development, whose keen observation of
deviant practice and continued experimentation led to SRI emerging over a decade with six
principles of growing rice that were different, often radically, from conventional rice cultivation
techniques.
Principles of SRI:
• Transplanting of very young seedlings between 8 and 15 days old to preserve potential
for tillering and rooting;
• Planting seedlings singly very carefully and gently rather than in clumps of many
seedlings that are often plunged in the soil, inverting root tips;
• Spacing them widely, at least 25 x 25 cm and in some cases even 50 x 50 cm, and in a
square pattern rather than in rows;
• Using a simple mechanical hand weeder to aerate the soil as well as to control weeds;
• Keeping the soil moist but never continuously flooded during the plants' vegetative
growth phase, up to the stage of flowering and grain production.
• Use of organic manure or compost to improve soil quality.
The growth of food grain production has stagnated in past few years while the consumption need has
been growing with increasing population resulting into food security crisis. SRI has been well proven
practice which has increased the productivity of paddy and wheat three folds. It has been widely
accepted that SRI is a mechanism to not only increase the productivity but also ensure food
security.
Basix Bihar has done a significant work on initiating Ag/BDS work through its wide network of
SHGs. The initiatives of SHG federations and government have gained some significant success
in promoting more then 7000 SRI over the last 2 years. BASIX has planned to reach at least one
lakh SRI customers over the next 2-3 years in Bihar. So as to develop a strategy for scaling up of
SRI in the region which will ensure food security to millions of poor households of eastern India,
BASIX with support from SDTT organized a Regional SRI- Scaling up workshop on the 17th of
April.

4. The workshop was organized in esteemed presence of dignitaries like Mr. Vijay Mahajan
(Chairman, BASIX), Dr. Renu Kumari Kushwaha (Agriculture Minister, Government of Bihar), Mr.
Vijay Kumar (Secretary Janta Dal United),Dr.N.Vijay Lakshmi (Managing Director, WDC) and
Dr.M.C.Diwaker (Director, Directorate of Rice Development). In order to get holistic overview,
resource persons, practiceners and technical experts were invited from various agencies like
PRADAN, Agha Khan Foundation,UNDP, BAMETI, SRI SECRETARIAT BRLPS, WDC, ICAR, Rice
Development,BASIX, Agriwatch and NABARD
The welcome note was followed by lighting of lamp by these dignitaries to mark the beginning
of a new era for scaling up SRI in Bihar and neighboring states of Eastern India and ensuring
food security for millions.
Presentation from SRI SECRETARIAT, promoted by Sir Dorabji Tata Trust on overview of SRI in India:
Mr. Tushar Das, Program Manager from SRI secretariat, hosted
in XIMB, shared the year wise progress of SRI since 2006-07 to
2009-10.the significant increase in NGO partners from 2 to 152
has increased the outreach from 11000 farmers to 56543
across 10 states and 105 districts. The positive results of the
program have influenced the Trustee of SDTT to sanction Rs.
23.91 Crore for the next 3 years. In addition to that CGM
Nabard has given his consent to sanction amount in equal
proportion (1:1) to the SDTT partners for promotion of SRI. This

5. fund may be diverted to CSO for promotion of SRI through NFSM. In Bihar, during the last 3 years the no
of farmers in SRI has rose to 17 thousand including Govt. and NGOs with increase in average yield of SRI
to 6 mt/Ha as against 2 mt/Ha in traditional method. SRI principles has been tested and promoted in
other crops like wheat, rapeseed, and vegetables. The trust is planning to extend the partnership for
another 2-3 years for generating a critical mass, policy advocacy in state level so as to facilitate
mainstreaming of SRI in entire state and conducting on farm research. In the next 3 years, SDTT is
planning to cover 1, 37,000 Farmers in Bihar by working with 4 partner organization. He also stressed
that to achieve this BASIX has to play a significant role.
Presentation from Rice directorate, Government of India:
It was followed by presentation of Dr.M.C. Diwaker,
Director of Rice Development, GOI on the strategy for
increasing rice production in which SRI as an
alternative. He stressed on need of paradigm shift to
develop semi-dwarf high yielding varieties and also to
exploit its genetics potential, more responsive to
fertilizer application, increase optimum use of inputs
such as water, fertilizer, seeds, pesticides and farm
implements and utilization of non-monetary inputs
such as timely sowing, spacing, timely application of
fertilizers and harvesting.
Dr.Diwaker shared the principles of SRI and its
comparison with traditional practice of sowing. He also presented the yield performance under SRI since
2005-06 to 2007-08 across all states. According to him SRI has lot of future prospects as it is biologically
eco-friendly, no pollution in environment, water and land ,increasing farmers’ income as well as
enhancing productivity, higher cost benefit ratio 1: 2.5,technologies leading to the organic farming, less
dependent on chemical fertilizers, minimum use of pesticides/herbicides/fungicides and early maturity.
Experience Sharing by farmers:
A member of SHG, Droupadi Devi from Banke Bazaar (promoted
under the banner of SSS, which was nurtured by IGS, BASIX
shared her experience on SRI with a song. The song on”rop
dhiyele SRI vidhi dhan wo, upzal badi jor dhanwa…breeder
chalet hoili taiyari …dal diyali mixture khaad wo.” described all
the practices of SRI. She raised issues on water, electricity and
fertilizer, son we need support for our agriculture interventions.
Ms Kanta Devi from the Border district, Raxaul also stressed on
the need for spreading SRI among the small and marginal
farmers to ensure food security.

6. INSPIRING WORDS FROM DIGNATORIES:
Dr.N. Vijaya Lakshmi (Managing Director, WDC)
showed her concern for global warming. According
to her, due to global warming the productivity is
coming down and challenge lies in ensuring the
productivity of rice and wheat for the cause of food
security. In Bihar there are 14000 farmers who are
associated with SRI and it has been accepted that
the productivity increases by three times. There are
various agencies which are involved in SRI like WDC,
BRLPS and BASIX. She requested from agriculture
minister to support the farmers with funds for
promotion of SRI in Bihar
Mr. Vijay Mahajan (Chairman, BASIX) agreed that
initial six months are doubtful in promotion of SRI
but now there are 14000 farmers associated in
Bihar, and hence we have the ground already
prepared for NGOs, SHG members, farmers to get
exposed to the concept. He drew the analogy of
how difficult it was initially to form SHGs, but with
time we have now 50 million SHG in the country.
He stressed that now it’s the time to focus from
thousand to lakhs of farmers. Information
dissemination and its adaptability have already
transformed farmers like Droupadi ji to “Dhan ka
doctor”.
Our rural women are already equipped in:
1. Agriculture 2.Animal Husbandry 3.Family management.
He stressed that , we should not be in illusion hat sustainable development will not come only with the
growth of service sector rather he stressed that our society will develop only when more and more
GREEN SKILLS like SRI be inculcated in our rural women and farmers. Global warming issue can be
handled by forestation and proper utilization of NREGA for conservation of water. There are more
techniques apart from SRI like forest redevelopment and watershed techniques. He proposed from all
the people in the forum to scale up SRI in each and every district of Bihar.
“We should all pledge for 10 lakh and 1 million hectare till 2020.”

7. Dr.Renu Kumar Kushwaha (Hon’ able Minister of Agriculture, GOB) – Dr.Kushwaha showed her
concerns on lowering productivity in Bihar. She had gone to Gaya and saw both paddy from SRI and
traditional method. In India and even in Bihar pulses have low productivity. Even govt knows 85% are
dependent on agriculture, there are lot of problems like irrigation, fertilizer and electricity and thus
launched simultaneously lot of schemes of micro irrigation
like drip and sprinkler irrigation. These schemes have 90%
subsidy. Another scheme is of ground water boring sets.
There are lots of other challenges in Bihar. It is consistently
being affected by disasters and coping with it is big
challenge. Government is aware of various issues in
agriculture like many times there are not grains in wheat
.Absence of grains due to lack of boron, so we have
increased subsidy on nutrients. Subsidy increased on paddy
transplanter. Soil test is also quite important. There is lot of
focus on kisan pathshala. Even through ATMA focus can be
on SRI.
At the end, she strongly assured for all her support in the process of Scaling up SRI. She assured that she
will arrange for more and more funds to the SHG federations promoted by WDC under the technical
guidance of BASIX.
Two books on improved agricultural practice developed by BASIX and IARI, under the NAIP project was
also released by the Minister, Agriculture and Our Chairman along with other dignitaries.
CHALLENGES ON SCALING UP SRI:
In order to achieve basic objective of the workshop, four thematic subgroups were formed. The four
subgroups were as following:
• Subgroup of technical agency
• Subgroup of donor/government agencies
• Subgroup of NGOs/federations
• Subgroup of microfinance agencies.
BASIX has hosted this workshop to get overview of all Key activities of technical agency
the stakeholders. The goal is to reach out to 10 lakh Simplification of package of
farmers by 2020 and various challenges emerged in practices.
different subgroups regarding scaling up of SRI. Tackling of myths of SRI
Technical agency identified few crucial issues like
Developing of community
package of practices which need to be simplified so that
its easily adaptable. There are various myths which resource persons and
need to be tackled for promotion of SRI. There is Community nursery and
following beliefs which emerged during the subgroup agricultural labours
discussion like:

8. 1. SRI cannot be promoted without vermicompost.
2. SRI is a kind of seed
3. SRI is hybrid
In this group technical agencies like PRADAN, BASIX, BRLPS, AKRSP were present who shared their on
field experiences regarding scaling up of SRI. Developing community resource person is another way of
scaling up. More technical hands may help in reaching out to more farmers and increasing the coverage.
Another innovative idea emerged regarding developing community nursery and training agricultural
labours.
The basic challenge in front of technical agencies is to increase the number of technical hands in SRI.
The second group of government agencies and donors
was more concerned regarding the lack of Key activities of government
convergence among different agencies. There are
department and donors
number of groups which are formed but with different
Identification of group and facilitate
focus. The first step should be to identify groups and
target should be fixed for the given area. Bihar has convergence.
outreach in almost 21 districts through Women Fixation of target and outreach
Development Corporation, therefore these through federation
federations can be quite helpful in scaling up SRI in
different districts. There are few districts which are
Developing of community resource
still unaware about SRI which indicates the high need persons.
of publicity. WDC has great resource of conducting Publicity through government
street play which can be used for publicity. In first department and NGO etc for service
instance, people do not agree with the package of
practices promoted under SRI, so it’s important to
delivery to farmers.
document the successful stories of farmers. Documentation of successful SRI
The third group of NGOs and federation showed
Key activities of NGOs/federations their concerns in implementation of SRI
Convergance of SRI with PRI and programme. The first challenge lies in converging
agriculture department. the SRI with panchayat raj institution and
Developing chain of resource persons agricultural department and developing chain of
resource persons. There is need for resource
Availability of agricultural equipments persons at all level. Another challenge is
Discussion of SRI as primary issue in every availability of agricultural equipments like weeder
SHG during peak season. Since coverage of SHGs is
Workshop at block level for SRI quite high, the active involvement of women can
accelerate the process of scaling up. In order to
Micro nurseries need to be developed at achieve this SRI should be discussed as primary
all levels. issue in every SHG. At group level micro nurseries
can be developed which can be used in large
scale.
The subgroup on microfinance raised various issues for scaling up SRI rather than key activities.
Microfinance sector finds lot risk in crop loaning because of various reasons like uncertainty in
agriculture, also no coverage of crop insurance in Bihar. There is also an issue of marketing of crop, so

9. they had concerns whether repayment should be in Key issues of microfinance agencies
cash or kind. The group also raised concern i.e. Risk involved in agriculture
repayment is in kind, MFIs do not have storage Absence of crop insurance in Bihar
capacity. Every MFI operates on minimal margin so
Issue of repayment – cash or kind
the MF services needs to be cushioned up to take up
so much of risk. Method of repayment.
Standardization of loan product.
COMPILED MATRIX OF ROLES FOR OVERCOMING CHALLENGES IN SCALING UP SRI:
Kind of agency Role in Scaling up SRI
Technical Agency • Formation of stakeholders committee at
district level and state level
• Developing community resource persons at
all level in hierarchy
• Developing community resource nursery at
federation level
Government and donor agencies • Resources fund
a. Demo
b. Exposure and training
c. Publicity and awareness
• Developing SRI as the mandate
• Infrastructure support- Department of
agriculture
• WDC- institutional framework as SHG
• Incentives as award and certificates
• Block level workshop for publicity- 2nd to 8th
May 2010
• Constitution of coordination committees.
NGO/Federation • District level stakeholders consortium- Plan
of action for five years Management of the
programme.
• Awareness building through campaigning,
using the media.
• Refresher course to community resource
persons
• Ensure availability of markers, weeders and
biofertilizers
• Pulling the resources from various
departments
Microfinance agencies • Joint product development for SRI loan

10. • Corpus of loan loss from SDTT/NABARD
• Standardization of loan product across MFIs
• Product design 4-6 months and repayment in
bullet or in kind
• Input Purchase linkage
• Constitution of technical committee with
SLBC
• Sensitization workshop of MFI and bankers
for lending for Sri purpose
Ms Vashumati, AVP, Ag/BDS, BASIX consolidated the discussions and presented before the panel
consisting of Dr.B.Rajender, Director Agriculture, Government of Bihar and Mr.Vijay Mahajan,Chairman,
BASIX.
The workshop concluded with ending note from the director, Agriculture assuring all support from the
department to take up the mission of scaling up SRI.
Mr. Vijay Mahajan stressed that to make SRI and new technologies developed by research institution
can only be successfully implemented once we can develop a system of fee based extension services. He
stressed that BASIX have already established a fee based service model with ore then 5 lakh customers.
He stressed on developing a cadre of community resource persons for scaling up SRI in each and every
district of Bihar. Mr. Mahajan also indicated on formation of district and state level forums for SRI and
conduct review meetings every month without fail. He requested banker, MFI’s and donors to
generously come forward for providing credit to farmers practicing SRI.

11. LIST OF PANELIST
S.No. List of Panelist Designation
1. Mr.M.C.Diwaker Director, Directorate of Rice
Department
2. Mr. Vijay Mahajan Chairman, BASIX
3. Mr.Tushar Das Program Manager, SRI
Secretariat
4. Dr.N.Vijayalakshmi Managing Director, WDC
5. Dr.R.K.Sahaney Director, BAMETI

12. LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
S.No. Name of participants Name of organization
1 Girdhari Prasad BSFL
2 Sanjay Kumar AAJ
Adarsh Maila Vikas S.M.V.SSS.Ltd
3 Dropadi Devi Bakebazar
Adarsh Maila Vikas S.M.V.SSS.Ltd
4 Ramti Devi Bakebazar
5 Birendra singh Agriculture department
6 Mequm AIR research
7 Nawad kiran AJ Patna
8 Rajni Bhushan AKRSP(I) Pusa
9 Rahul AKRSP(I) Pusa
10 Subhendra AKSXPI
11 Dr. Ajay Kr. ARI(RAU PUSA) Bihar
12 Shreesh Tripathi ASA
13 Santosh kr. Basix
14 Tapas kr. Pati Basix
15 Akhoury prabhas Basix
16 K.Vasumathi Basix
17 Anuj Upaddyay Basix
18 Dr. Ravi Chandra BDT
19 Snehi Devi Brabar Fed. Makhdumpur
20 Indu Kumari Brabar Fed. Makhdumpur
21 Devraj bebera BRLPS
22 Sanjay Kumar BSFL
23 manish kumar BSFL
24 Shailendra Kumar Singh BSFL
25 Sanjeev Kumar BSFL
26 Vikash Singh BSFL
27 Rajiv Khanna BSFL
28 Vijay Kumar Mishra BSFL
29 Rakesh Kumar BSFL
30 Garima Anand BSFL
31 Mihir Shana BSFL

13. 32 Kartikey Singh BSFL
33 Amit Gourav BSFL
34 Sharda Devi Budha Swamsidha Mohanpur
35 Deepak kr. Centre for world solidarity
36 Rindro Devi Chandni Fed. Barachatti
37 Mukesh Pd. CRDCM
38 Madhukar Das CRDCM
39 Champa Tigga CWS Patna
40 Smita kumar Dainik jagran
41 Dr. M G Diwakar Director DRP Patna
42 kumar prasad Farmer Patna
43 Anita Devi Farmer K.Nagar
44 P.K. Vinod G.P.S. CDMRD Patna
45 Sudama Singh Gram viksh Manch Rohtas
46 Vinay Kr. Grameen Vikas Sansthan
47 Anil Kumar Hindustan
48 Reena sharma Hindustan
49 A P Dube Hindustan Times
50 Dr. Kanhaiya singh IARI regional station PUSA
51 Simran Adhikari IGS (Basix)
52 Bablu Singh IGS (Basix)
53 Md. Jawaid islam IGS (Basix)
54 H.p. Singh IGS (Basix)
55 Rajiv Ranjan Kumar IGS (Basix)
56 Arti Sinha IGS (Basix)
57 Sunil Kumar Sinha IGS (Basix)
58 Dharmendra Srivastva IGS (Basix)
59 Tapan Kumbhkar IGS (Basix)
60 Niraj Kumar Singh IGS (Basix)
61 Arvind kumar Rai K.V.K Nawada
62 Sarita kumari Khusbu Fed. Imamganj
63 Minnat aisha Khushi Fed. (Amour)
64 Barun Kumar Sharma Lok Prerna Deoghar
65 Kamal Kishorsingh M.V.S. Razarh navod
66 Praveen Kumar Maa Shanti Memorial Foundation
67 Vandana Madhu Maa Shanti Memorial Foundation

14. 68 Indu Devi Meenapur Fed.
69 Saprishi raj Megnificent news
70 Kanta Devi Muskan Raxual
71 Arvind Kumar Das Muskan Raxual
72 sarat kumar behera NABARD, Patna
73 S.Ramesh NABARD, Patna
74 Tapan kumar Sethy NABARD,Ranchi
75 Radhika Devi Nari Mukti Swamsidha Konch
76 Satyendra Pd. Navjagriti
77 Chanda Devi Navjeevan Fed. K.Nagar
78 Madhu Devi Navjyoti S.M.V.SSS. Ltd.
79 Dr. S.K. Sinha PADRL
80 Nikesh Anand Pahla Kadam
81 Dhirendra gupta Patli News
82 Vijay kr. Patna Animal Development Pvt ltd
83 Almas tatmi Prabhat Khabar
84 Anil kr. Verma PRADAN
85 snehaj Prof. G.P.Sinha for Distance Mgmt.
Prof.G.D.S. Center for Disaster mgmt.&
86 Dr. Rajan Singh Rural Devision
87 Suman kr. Pryas bharti
88 Rakesh kumar PTN
89 Rupa Raghuvansh group motihari
90 Rajendra Raghuvansh group motihari
91 Dr. V.K. Mishra RAU KVK Purnea
92 suresh kr. Reportor
93 Santosh kr. Reportor
94 Sunil kr. Singh Research India
95 Neelesh sinha RGVN Patna
96 Harsverdhan S.P.A
97 Sanjay Kumar S.P.W.D
98 Indra raj sadhna news
99 Sarita kumari Sagar Fed. (Ghoshi)
100 Anjani Kumar Sagar Fed. (Ghoshi)
101 shivendra kumar sandhya parhari
102 Sidthnath Dosandeep Patnak Sandhya prahari

15. 103 Savita kumari Sanmarg
104 Yachna Srivastwa SSS
105 Geeta Kumari Tapowan Fed. (Wajirganj)
106 Ajit Singh UNDP RANCHI
107 Mannila WDC
108 U . N. Singh WDC
109 Manoj kr. WDC
110 Sanjay kr. Sinha WDC
111 Shekhar WDC
112 Vikash Kumar WDC
113 Irina Sinha WDC
114 Santosh Kumar WDC
115 Vijay Raghbendra WDC
116 N.Vijayalaxmi WDC
117 R S Roy Consultant