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MOST people know Robert “Obet” Verzola as a
University of the Philippines engineer who pioneered information
technology in this country in the 1970s. Others know him as an
election watchdog whose critiques of past polls he has backed up
with copious statistics. But this engineer cum inventor turned
social activist is also an enthusiastic proponent of SRI—short for
“system of rice intensification.”
It was almost four years ago when
Verzola guested at the weekly Kapihan sa Sulo media forum to help
drum up support for SRI, which was to be the topic of a conference
at UP Los Baños in October 2004. Unsurprisingly, SRI did not get
much of a response from the government—and the vested interests in
the commercial farming sector whose megaprofits stood to be eroded
if Filipino farmers adopted this innovation in rice production.
It is now 2008—and our
collective indifference to SRI has begun to haunt us. While the
authorities are correct in denying the existence of a rice shortage,
the fact remains global supplies of this and other cereals have
become increasingly tight due to a confluence of factors. And
experts agree that the supply situation can only get tighter in the
years ahead.
Obviously, the time has come for
the government—particularly Secretary Arthur Yap and the
Department of Agriculture—to give SRI a second look.
Jesuit inventor
Online sources tell us that SRI,
as a method of increasing rice yields, was invented in 1983 by a
Jesuit priest, Henri de Laulanie, in Madagascar—although full
testing of the system occurred only some years later.
It was Norman Uphoff, director of
the International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development at
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, from 1990 to 2005 who helped
spread SRI from Madagascar to other countries. In 1993 Uphoff met
officials from Association Tefy Saina, the NGO set up in Madagascar
in 1990 by Father de Laulanie to promote SRI.
Uphoff saw for himself the
success of SRI for three years when Malagasy farmers—whose
previous yields averaged two tons per hectare—began to harvest
eight tons per hectare with SRI. Uphoff was quickly persuaded of the
merits of the system, and in 1997 he started to promote SRI in Asia.
As of 2007 the beneficial effects
of SRI methods have been documented in 28 countries, most recently
in Bhutan, Iraq, Iran and Zambia. Governments in the largest
rice-producing countries—China, India and Indonesia—are now said
to be supporting SRI extension. In India, SRI concepts and practices
have reportedly also been applied with success to such crops as
sugar cane, finger millet and wheat.
In 2004 Verzola published “SRI:
Practices and Results in the Philippines.” The paper reviewed the
range of practices and results from field trials of SRI in the
Philippines, based on the reports of groups, institutions and
individuals that have tried SRI and on personal interviews with SRI
practitioners and researchers.
Verzola, who is also secretary
general of Philippine Greens, found the then-current average yield
of SRI trials to be 6.13 tons per hectare—or 104 percent more than
the national average of three tons per hectare. Meanwhile, return on
investment ranged from 78 to 452 percent.
Worldwide, Verzola said, yield
gains from SRI have ranged from 14 percent in China to 209 percent
in Gambia. The practices that attained these yields include: younger
seedlings; one seedling per hill and wider spacing between hills;
avoiding seedling root damage; moist, not flooded, rice fields;
regular use of mechanical weeder; and compost instead of chemical
fertilizers.
Verzola noted that the Philippine
government’s hybrid rice program included some SRI practices, like
single seedlings and wider planting distances. “This suggests that
some of the reported hybrid rice yield gains are due to the SRI
effect and not to changed genetic potential,” he added.
Verzola proposed a scientific
conference on SRI, more research on SRI practices, nationwide
verification trials, widespread farm-scale trials, and a review of
the government rice program to include SRI in the DA budget.
That was four years ago—and
little has been heard from the government on the SRI proposal.
SRI critics
To be sure, SRI has its share of
detractors.
According to online sources, SRI
proponents point to other benefits aside from yield increase. These
include resistance to pests and diseases, resistance to abiotic
stresses like drought and storm damage, more output of polished rice
when SRI paddy (palay or unmilled rice) is processed, less chemical
pollution of soil and water resources.
Critics, nonetheless, have
focused on yield—alleging that claims of increase are due to
“poor record keeping and unscientific thinking.” They objected
to what they called a lack of details on the methodology used in
trials and a lack of publications in the peer-reviewed literature.
Online sources acknowledged that
systematic trials that will satisfy scientific critics remain to be
done—although researchers at the International Rice Research
Institute in Los Baños, Laguna, and Cornell were last reported to
be planning a joint evaluation.
Instead of finger-pointing, our
leaders could find better use for their—and our—time by
supporting efforts to increase rice production through methods like
SRI.
This time around, let them put
their money where their mouth is.
mlatimes@gmail.com
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