Can the System of Rice Intensification Save Water and Increase Yield of Paddy?: A Study of Tank Irrigated Area

Abstract

Owing to looming water scarcity, paddy cultivation (a water-intensive crop) under the conventional inundation method is going to be a very difficult venture for farmers. The new method of paddy cultivation (MCD) known as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) appears to be very useful to paddy cultivating farmers to overcome the issue of water scarcity. SRI has been in practice over the last few years in India, but not many studies have attempted to find out whether the SRI MCD is useful to farmers in terms of saving water and increasing the yield of paddy using data collected from water-stressed tank irrigated area. In this study, an attempt has been made to fill this gap using data collected from a total of 100 sample farmers from a district in Tamil Nadu State. The study shows that SRI farmers can save 41% of water and harvest about 40% of higher productivity than non-SRI farmers. Through saving of water, fertiliser and other inputs, about 22% of the reduction in the cost of cultivation was also realised by SRI farmers. The increased productivity and reduced cost of cultivation, helped the SRI farmers to harvest an additional profit of ₹15,158/acre over the profit earned by the farmers cultivating paddy under the conventional inundation method.