Poster presentation at the 4th International Rice Congress (2014) Title: The Roots of the Root Revolution: Pre-Green Revolution Antecedents of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in India Presenter: Dominic Glover Venue: BITEC, Bangkok, Thailand Dates: October 27-31, 2014

1. P582
The roots of the “root revolution”:
Pre-Green Revolution Antecedents of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in India
P582 / IRC14–0614
Dominic Glover
Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
(formerly of the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands)
An output from the NWO–WOTRO project “The System of Rice Intensification as a socio-economic and technical movement in India”
(2010-2014), which involves partners from the Knowledge, Technology & Innovation (KTI) Group and the Development Economics (DEC)
Group at Wageningen University, NL, and the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, IN.
SRI methods: A revolution in rice cultivation?
The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is often portrayed as a radical
innovation based on previously unrecognised features of rice
physiology and morphology.
SRI cultivation methods are designed to exploit these innate
characteristics for a higher rice yield (see Box 1).
A ‘root revolution’ by accident
Further reading
 Glover (2011) ‘Science, practice and the System of Rice Intensification in Indian agriculture’
Food Policy 36(6): 749–755 .
 Glover (2011) ‘A System Designed for Rice? Materiality and the Invention/Discovery of the
System of Rice Intensification’ East Asian Science, Technology and Society 5(2): 217–237.
Historical precedents
They include the
‘single-seedling
method’ or
‘economical paddy
planting’ from
British India as
long ago as the
early 1900s.
Similar methods
were documented
and explored in
the Philippines and
Vietnam during
the 1920s.
Citations show
that agronomists
in these sites read
each other’s work.
These practices are intended
to express three underlying
principles:
 Exploiting the vigorous
growth potential of young
rice seedlings.
 Giving individual rice plants
abundant space to access
light, soil nutrients and
moisture, firmly anchored
by a large root.
 Promoting aerobic soil
conditions in order to
encourage a healthy soil
microbial life in the root
zone.
SRI practices have been hailed by enthusiasts as a radical departure
from any that had been tried before, launching a ‘root revolution’ in
the cultivation of rice and other field crops.
SRI methods are said to have been discovered suddenly, by accident,
We found examples of ‘SRI-like’ cultivation methods that were
studied, practised, and promoted decades before the Green
Revolution, in various locations, going back to colonial times (Fig. 2).
Box 1: SRI cultivation practices
 Raising rice seedlings in a thinly
sown ‘garden-like’ nursery
 Transplanting very young seedlings
(8–15 days old)
 Transplanting seedlings singly and
widely spaced (25×25 cm)
 Early and regular weeding combined
with soil aeration
 Sparse irrigation, ideally
interspersed with short dryings to
the point of soil cracking
 Heavy fertilisation using organic
sources as much as possible
Implications
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the financial support of the Dutch
Organisation for Scientific Research under the Science
for Global Development Programme (NWO–WOTRO),
grant number W 01.65.328.00 (2010–2014).
Please visit the other posters and oral presentations by researchers from this project:
 Poster P564 Adusumilli & Schipper “Integrating SRI with safe AWD in Water Constrained
Semiarid Areas: New Opportunities to Produce More Rice with Less Water” (IRC14-1041)
 Poster P525 Sabarmatee “Gender Issues in the Introduction of Mechanical Weeding with
System of Rice Intensification (SRI): Insights from Village Studies in Odisha, India” (IRC14-
0937)
 Oral presentation Sen & Maat “User Adaptations in Water Management of Rice Farms of
Uttarakhand: Landscape and Farm-Level Interactions and Negotiations” (IRC14-0668, C03-2,
Wednesday 14:30, room GH203)
 Oral presentation Maat et al. “The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in India: Historical
Antecedents, Present Dynamics and Possible Futures” (IRC14-0694, C06-1, Friday 11:10,
room MR222)
Institute of Development Studies,
Brighton BN1 9RE, UK
Email: D.Glover@ids.ac.uk
Tel: + 44 (0)1273 91 58 78
Web: http://www.ids.ac.uk/person/dominic-glover
in Madagascar during the 1980s, by a
French missionary and agronomist, Fr.
Henri de Laulanié.
In fact, Laulanié drew upon various
sources to build his methods, including
scientific publications and rice cultivation
handbooks as well as direct observation of
plants and farmers, and trial-and-error.
One of his sources was a rice cultivation
manual published in Antananarivo in 1961
– the same year he arrived in Madagascar
(Fig. 1).
The manual contains a list of guidelines
remarkably similar to the one in Box 1,
notably the use of young, widely spaced
seedlings, with early weeding and
adequate N fertiliser.
Figure 1. Rice Cultivation
Manual by J.-P. Dobelmann.
Published in Antananarivo,
Madagascar, 1961.
Figure 2. Traces of SRI-like methods in colonial India,
Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma (Myanmar), French Indochina
(Vietnam), the Philippines, and Madagascar. In several cases
these were related explicitly or implicitly to Japanese cultivation
techniques refined in the late C19th.
Many regarded Japanese methods as exemplary. In the 1950s the so-called
‘Japanese Method of Paddy Cultivation’ was promoted in India;
it also shared features in common with SRI including low-density
transplanting, intermittent irrigation, intercultivation, and organic
fertilisation. This was called ‘India’s Rice Revolution’ in 1956 – before
the Green Revolution began.
SRI has deeper roots and firmer foundations than is commonly
known. They draw on a long history of intellectual and practical work.
SRI-like methods were studied, practised and promoted, but also
struggled with, debated, adapted and sometimes rejected or
abandoned over a long period.
These historical precedents should be studied for the lessons that
may be learned from them, including positive and negative
experiences.