RAISING FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY IN IRRIGATED RICE PRODUCTION: OPPORTUNITIES WITH THE SYSTEM OF RICE INTENSIFICATION

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) developed in Madagascar has been controversial in some agronomic circles in part because there have been no large-scale, long-term evaluations of the impact of the methods recommended. This paper reports on 9 cropping seasons (2002-2006) of on-farm comparative evaluations across 3 provinces in Eastern Indonesia conducted under the supervision of a Nippon Koei technical assistance team. It summarizes the results of 12,133 comparison trials covering 9,429 hectares. Average yield increase was 78 % (3.3 t/ha) with a 40 % reduction in water use and 50 % in fertilizer applications, with 20 % lower costs of production. The controversy will not be resolved by any single evaluation, but these results support the previous reports that SRI practices in combination can achieve significantly higher output with a reduction in inputs, enhancing simultaneously the productivity of the land, labor, water and capital used in irrigated rice production. 1