Trends in India’s Rice production and productivity : SRI vs Conventional method of rice cultivation - A statistical and economic perspective  S. Ravichandran  R. Mahender Kumar  M. Srinivas Prasad  V. Ravindra Babu  P. Muthuraman Directorate of Rice Research Hyderabad, India

 Rice is Life – 44% of population depends on rice. We need to produce 127 million tonnes by 2025 and 180 million tonnes by Introduction

Rice scenario

Year on Year Yield Improvement YearYield increase (in kg) YearYield increase (in kg) –

Crop-wise water requirement S.No.Name of the cropWater Requirement (mm) 1Rice1240 2Ragi Bajra Maize Groundnut550 6Wheat Cotton Sunflower Tobacco

“Water is the Elixir of Life”. Rice crop requires more water By SRI, in 10% area, if we save 20,30 and 40% water, 500,740 and 1000 million mm is saved. A huge amount of money saved. That means, additional 0.4 mha rice can be grown or 2-3 times of other cereals. Seed saving : 20 kg/ha Five times less hybrid seed is used – lower seed requirement in SRI. Less chemical fertiliser in SRI. No chemical control of pests and diseases. More Yield in SRI SRI over Conventional

Cost of Cultivation S.No.Activity Cost in Conventional Rupees SRI 1.Nursery Preparation Main Field preparation Nutrient Management Transplanting Weed Management Water Management Plant Protection660 8.Harvesting3500 Total21,24919,060

Cost of Cultivation (activity-wise)

S.No.ItemSRIConventional 1.Yield7.1 t/ha6.7 t/ha 2. Gross Return (per ha) Rs.39050Rs B:C ratio2.04 : : 1 SRI is beneficial to farmers. By converting, 10% area under SRI, saving of RS.43 million/season Benefit Analysis

Potential Yield Improvement under SRI S.No. Area under SRI (%) Yield Improvement (%) Inc. in rice production (million tons)

SRI method is the solution for increase in rice production and productivity. Resources like water, seed, chemical ferilizers can be saved. Increased production, productivity and benefit cost ration by adopting SRI. Large scale adoption may be recommended by policy advisors to meet food security with lower resources. Conclusions and Recommendations

1.S.Ravichandran and P.Hemasankari (2006) “Water: The elixir of life”, Kisan World, December Fausett, L. (1994). Fundamentals of Neural Networks, New York: Prentice Hall. 3.M.S.Swaminathan (2006) Report of sub-committee on more crop and income per drop of water. 4.International Rice Research Institute (2001) Annual reports, : Rice Research: the way forward, IRRI, Las Banos, Phillippines. 5.T.M.Thiyagarajan, H.Hengsdijk, and Brindaban (2005) Transitions in agriculture for enhancing water productivity – Proc.of an Int.symposium, TNAU, TNadu. References