This document summarizes Sabarmatee's research on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and its impact on labor in India. Through interviews and observations in 30 villages, she explored how SRI affects the physical experiences of labor. While SRI reduced the drudgery of some tasks for women, it increased drudgery for men through additional land preparation jobs. Younger women found SRI less painful than older women. A participatory tool called RaCoPA was used to document pains from different rice growing methods. Overall, SRI reduced drudgery, especially when men shared women's work, but the technology was not universally appreciated due to differing impacts based on age and gender.

1. System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and
Labouring Bodies: Exploring Socio-technical
Interactions
Sabarmatee
Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group,
Wageningen University

2. My puzzle began here
During my exploratory visits from January to June of 2011
in around 30 villages, I got to interact with people who
were doing rice cultivation before selecting my study
villages and formulating my questions and questionnaire.
Village typology and discussion on drudgery issue
No. of villages
2 villages
7 villages
1 village
20 villages
Where discussed on drudgery issue
Non-SRI, so no discussion on drudgery issue
Could not discuss drudgery issues for
different reasons
Women of same community do not do any
on-field task in rice-fields at all
Discussed drudgery issue

3. Learning at Preliminary Stage
• Prior to the current research work, I heard
women saying SRI is less strenuous.
• During my preliminary visits, mostly women,
who worked in SRI fields, reported some
- direct effect and
- indirect effects
of SRI on their bodies

4. Direct Effects
Reported
- Reduction in infections in
hands and legs withn SRI
(more specifically if chemical
fertilizers and pesticides are
not applied in the SRI fields)
- SRI is less strenuous.
Reasons given
- Do not have to put hands and
legs continuously inside muddy
water for long.
- Reduction in work hours.
- Reduction in total amount of
work
- Men shared women’s work
- Change in postures
- Change in type of work

5. Indirect Effects
Impact
Reasons given
- Get more time to cook
and eat comfortably,
- Change in nature of the
work
- Get more time to rest
and hence feel better
- Change in total hours of
work
- More participation of
men which relieved
women of their workload

6. Puzzle continued…………….
Same technology, same tasks, same gender:
but experiences of young and old are not same !!
Chandrabati, below 40, Gunjigaon
Tulasi, above 50, Rajnapalli

7. Even experiences of husband and wife
were different
Leshu and Chandrabati
Sabita and Jambeswar

8. Realized that:
- Impact of SRI on labouring bodies is different, not
only for men and women, but also between young
and old, which has differential ramifications.
However,
- Although very important, assessing all the impacts
within the present study was not manageable.
- This required different research methods (mainly
experimental combined with clinical), additional
budget and support of expertise from the fields of
medicine like dermatology, epidemiology,
physiology, etc.
This can be considered as future researchable
issue.

9. What I explored within
the framework of this study was:
“SRI is less strenuous”
plus the dynamics of change
Main research question:
How do SRI and labour mutually shape each other?
Sub-research question:
What happens to labouring bodies because of
introduction of SRI, and in turn, how do people’s
bodily experiences shape SRI?

10. Historically, drudgery and pain assessment are,
often, not integrated in mainstream studies on
technology impact assessment. Exclusion of this
has resulted in not developing appropriate
mechanisms to address the health issues of a
large vulnerable labouring group.

11. Mutual Shaping of Labour and Technology
‘Agriculture as a performance is part of the
wider performance of social life’
Paul Richards
‘Social and technical cannot be seen apart’
Bijker and Law
‘Technology may have been seen as socially
shaped, but shaped by men
to the exclusion of women’
Wajcman

12. International Food Policy Research Institute’s
conceptual framework of the
linkages between agriculture and health:
Agricultural producers [farmers and workers]
through intermediary processes of labour
[energy, time, amount, location] while
interacting with environment [water, air, soil]
become exposed to occupational health risks
like water associated vector borne diseases.
[Hawkes, Corrinna and Ruel, Marie T, Understanding the Links
Between Agriculture and Health, Brief-1, Focus 13, IFPRI, USA,
2006 ]

13. Materials and Methods
Materials:
- Purposively selected 3 villages located in 3
districts of Odisha, India, having diverse:
agro-ecology,
ethnic groups,
rice cultivation practices,
labour characteristics, and
institutional interventions.
- General observation of agricultural operations
in 2011-12, but focused on randomly-selected
20 sample SRI farming families in each village
having 545 rice plots during 2012 .

14. Materials and Methods
Methods:
Multiple Parallel Case Study Design, exploratory in
nature
Tools: Technographic Approach
Primary sources:
• Focus Group discussions
• Participant-observation of tasks and measuring
technology-specific materials and distances
• Individual informal interviews
• Story-telling
• RaCoPA – Pain Mapping Tool & Ergonomics Tool
• Filming and Ppotography

16. Social scientists, by and large, face the challenge
of selecting recommended scientific methods or
using tools for assessment of drudgery and pain
that involve use of sophisticated and expensive
instruments by skilled persons during the actual
work in the rice field.

17. In this context, it was essential to design
and use a participatory and innovative
tool to understand the bodily
experiences like pain and drudgery
A tool was designed called RaCoPA
(Rapid Comparative Pain Assessment)
taking inspiration from concept of PRA
and using body maps and FGD tools

18. Process of RaCoPA: Some Glimpses

19. What are the specific
activities that men and
women (also children)
do to produce rice, and
which ways of growing
rice cause how much
pain in which parts of
their bodies?

20. Pointing Pain
Pointing out points of pain

21. Explaining posture and points of pain

22. RaCoPA Product

23. Name of the village and address
Date
Focal Group: Specify gender and age group (may attach a name list with age,
years of experience, etc.)
Physical Pain Experienced by Women Labourers of ………Village
Activities
Conventional
Transplanting
Method
SRI
Direct Sowing
Method
e.g. Manual
Weeding
Hand, palm, back,
elbow, waist, thighs,
knees, feet, nails more
Hand, palm, back,
elbow, waist, thighs,
knees, feet – very
much less
Hand, palm, back,
elbow, waist, thighs,
knees, feet, nails –
more than conv. TP
method
not used , no pain
Shoulders, hand
including wrist and
palm, chest leg
Not used, no pain
Mechanical
weeding – Mandva
weeder

24. Trade-off between reduction and
increase in drudgery
Reduction in drudgery
Increase in drudgery
Women - Uproot fewer seedlings
- Transport less seedlings, lighter in
weight, due to smaller-size seedlings
- Men participated in tasks like
weeding
- Have to do more
numbers of weeding
- Use of mechanical
weeder
- More supervision
Men
- Work for longer time
for land leveling,
channel- making , bund
dressing
- Participated in
marking, transplanting
and weeding
- Smaller-size nursery making
- More women participated in nursery
raising

25. Hours spent on different tasks
(per acre)
Land preparation - Bullock tiller
Tractor Power Nursery
Rajanapalli
Conv 80-90 4-5
6-10 7-8
SRI
90-100 4-5
6-10 2-3
Gunjigaon
conv 150-160
4-5
8-12
SRI
160-170
3-4
Kokariguda
Conv 70-80
4-5
SRI
70-80
2-3
UprootingTransporting
Transpalnting
Weeding Harvesting
70-80
6-8
20-30
10-15
130-150 100-150 90-100
75-90 40-50 90-100
25-30
4-5
8-14
4-8
150-160
110-120 40-50
100-120
100-120
20-30
5-10
5-10
3-5
90-100 45-50
70-80 20-25
50-60
40-50

26. Leveling and channel making –
additional tasks for men

27. • Sensing the drudgery of additional tasks,
many men did not support SRI and still do not
support SRI.
• But women like Laxmi Mohanty or Ahalya
Nahak manage to do SRI in spite of opposition
from their spouses.
• After 2-3 years of efforts as plots became
more leveled, drudgery is reduced.
• Women also started participating in channel
making, bund dressing, etc.

28. Size of nursery, quantity of seed
determine the amount of work
SRI nursery
Conventional nursery

29. Often SRI nurseries are closer to main field or inside
the main field – so travelling distance is reduced

30. Seed and Nursery per acre
Seeds – Need to handle only 2-3 kgs in SRI
instead of 20-40 kgs in conventional method
Nursery - Need to managed only 1 decimal area
for raised bed in SRI; 10 decimals for a
conventional nursery
What happens to labouring bodies in this case?

31. Weight and distance matters a lot
Carrying seedlings for
conventional plots
Carrying Seedlings for
SRI plots

32. What is transported and
how much is transported
SRI
Conventional

33. Seedling weights vary across methods,
so does drudgery
Average seedling weight for
conventional method
• Actual weight of seedlings
carried by labourers
• Actual weight carried by
labourers – women
• Actual weight carried by
Men and Women in SRI

34. Same posture in different methods
but amount of work differs, as does time
SRI
Conventional

35. Transplanting in SRI
Although drudgery is reduced due to lesser
number of seedlings, planting single, younger
seedlings at wider spacing -- elderly women do not
like it.
Concentration on planting at certain points (in grid)
is boring and hence more stressful to them.
But younger ones find it less painful and hence they
like it. Average time of pushing the hand into the
muddy water in conventional method is 40-50 times
per minute, and in SRI, just 6-10 times per minute.

37. Gender-wise work participation in
weeding (in number of labourers)
No. of
weeding
Gender
1st weeding
Men
1st weeding
Women
2nd weeding
Men
2nd weeding
Women
3rd weeding
3rd weeding
Rajnapalli
Gunjigaon
Kokariguda
22
54
14
158
68
275
-
29
2
26
18
1
Men
-
3
-
Women
-
18
-
Men’s participation reduced women’s drudgery,
and increased men’s drudgery.

38. Design and weight of weeders has different
impacts on bodies, and hence on SRI
Cono weeder- heavier more painful - discarded
Mandva weeder – lighter,
less painful - In use now

39. Cono weeder was replaced by Mandva
weeder model mainly because both men and
women experienced more drudgery while
using it, besides the fact that it did not work
well in some soils.

40. Weeding by using weeder is
fun for them
No man above 50
participates in weeding
?
No elderly woman too

41. Due to adaptations, drudgery
is reduced in conventional
method also – wider spacing,
less seedlings to handle
SRI is changing
conventional
practice

42. Conclusion
- Issue of drudgery is a product and process in social
and material interactions which may not necessarily
show any predictable pattern of outcomes.
- Drudgery is less in case of SRI, especially for
women, more specifically when men share their
tasks.
- But reduction in drudgery does not necessarily lead
to appreciation of the technology by all age groups.
- Drudgery could be a potential contributing factor
for acceptance or rejection of a tool like a particular
design of weeder or even a technology like SRI.

43. Bodily experiences are potential contributing
factors for skilling and deskilling.
Bodily experiences are yet to be recognized from
labourers’ perspectives who are actually end-users
of a technology like SRI or artifacts like weeders.
Extension strategies, tool designing can be better
done if bodily experiences are taken into account.

44. THANK YOU VERY MUCH