THE SYSTEM OF RICE INTENSIFICATION: MEMOIRES OF AN INNOVATION

MULTIPLE READERSHIPS

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This book is written for persons who want to know about SRI and about what it offers to farmers, households, communities, nations, and the global environment. It is written for anyone curious about the three questions laid out above: How did SRI come into existence and how did its mechanisms and merits come to be understood? How was initial resistance to SRI overcome? And how was knowledge about SRI spread in countries around the world? This spread has been slower than might have been expected, given the benefits on offer, but in retrospect it may be considered as reasonably rapid. The book also seeks to illuminate some larger issues and problems of institutional change and unresponsiveness, of scientific progress and rigidity, of human nature and weaknesses.

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• The book is written particularly for persons who have participated in different aspects of this saga and who would like to learn more about the many moving parts of SRI -- about the fortuitous events, the disappointments, the breakthroughs, and so forth. It is for anyone who wants to gain an appreciation of this innovation which is changing the way that agriculture gets practiced, not just as SRI for growing rice, but as part of a broader agroecological movement that is gaining international recognition and momentum.[7]

• It is written also for persons who have heard about SRI and are curious to know more about it because of the claims being made, or possibly because the controversy around it has attracted their attention. The book should help them to become knowledgeable about this innovation and about what it can do for people and for the natural ecosystems upon which we depend.

• In addition, the book is written to shed light on the way that intellectual and social change can be made – or how it is often impeded – in an age when humankind needs to be making profound modifications in our science and technology, in our economies and societies, and in our institutions, our governance, and our culture. Without improvements in the ways that our institutions function and without reducing their malfunction, it is doubtful that we will be able to reach the end of this century without economic, social, political and environmental retrogression that was unimaginable during the optimistic last half of the 20th century.

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Because electronic publishing can now make books like this one widely available and inexpensive, even free, this memoire is not written as a conventional book, with an aspiration to become a best-seller, although it is hoped that there will be wide and avid readership. Rather it is written to inform people now and in years to come about how the innovation/phenomenon/movement of SRI arose, how it became comprehended, accepted, and eventually influential.

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The book is thus written for all of the friends and colleagues, farmers, NGO workers, officials, researchers and others who are open to new ideas and to thinking outside of our respective ‘boxes,’ for anyone who is curious about and hopes to contribute in some way to having food production that is better suited than now to the needs and conditions of this 21st century.

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‘Good News’ vs. ‘Fake News’

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Throughout this story, a kind of unifying theme is the tension between different characterizations of SRI as ‘good news’ or as ‘fake news.’ SRI predates by several decades the concept of ‘fake news’ that has been recently promulgated in the United States and elsewhere. This designation describes well how SRI was regarded and received by many established scientists and institutional interests when it first emerged on the world scene beyond Madagascar. SRI was dismissed as something impossible, something fantastic, indeed something not even worth discussing or evaluating.[8] Thus, for some years, the classification of SRI reports as ‘fake news’ created significant impedance.

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At the same time, persons who worked with SRI methods in the field and had seen their results and others, often scientists who had evaluated SRI with standard research methods, came to regard SRI as ‘good news,’ something to be disseminated in the original sense of the word ‘evangelism.’ This word means literally ‘the spreading of good news,’ although it has acquired a negative connotation of zealous advocacy that is pejorative and demeaning.

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In fact, the ‘good news’ of SRI has been a strong challenge to scientific orthodoxy, to the doctrines of the Green Revolution and to a widespread belief in genetic determinism. While geneticists understand that genes do not control outcomes in the manner of blueprint, the metaphor of DNA as a genetic blueprint gained widespread acceptance as soon as the mysteries of DNA’s double helix started to be unraveled and explained.

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Those who best understood the complexity of ‘genetic machinery,’ an unfortunate metaphor, knew that DNA and other cellular components contribute to organisms’ development in conjunction with a myriad of environmental factors.[9] This is often referred to as ‘G x E interaction,’ the joint and combined effects of genetic and environmental influences. SRI was a dramatic confirmation of the potency of such interaction, challenging the popular narrative of genetic potentials as shaping and determining outcomes rather than as being the starting points for development. 

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We have found that SRI practices give their highest yield when used with ‘improved’ varieties. However, under SRI management the yields of ‘unimproved’ rice varieties can also be greatly increased, and these varieties are often more profitable for farmers because they command a higher price in the market, reflecting consumer preferences. So, while SRI confirms the value of genetic improvement, it also shows that making improvements in genetic potential, while important, is not as essential as implied by genetic fundamentalism.

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Also, SRI shows that purchased agrochemical inputs are not as necessary for agricultural success as commercial interests would have farmers, consumers and policy-makers believe. How resources are managed can be as important as the resources themselves, although positing an opposition between these factors is no more enlightening than has been learned from the nature vs. nurture debate.

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As indicated at the outset of this prologue, the story of SRI is not yet finished, and many more chapters remain to be written beyond what will be provided here. There are many small and specific, often charming and instructive, pieces of this story that can be shared now, along with some overarching and highly significant larger elements. These first two chapters have laid out both the purpose and game plan for the book, with some intriguing proffers that should evoke curiosity and dispose readers to join in following an adventure.

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As our scientific and cultural knowledge expands, it sometimes seems that there are fewer and fewer frontiers for surprise and discovery. Large organizations and huge budgets dominate our landscape and purview. But there can still be surprise and discovery, starting on a small and individual scale, which can become something momentous when many persons join together. This realization is the starting point for this memoire on the System of Rice Intensification, appreciating the observation made many years ago by the American anthropologist Margaret Mead:

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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” 

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While the SRI story has its foundations in the biological sciences, it is infused through and through with social science considerations, and vice versa. We live not in an either/or world, but in a both/and universe.

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This Is Not a Guinness Book of Records for Rice Production

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Throughout this memoire, there will be a lot of rice yield results and other data reported. These numbers are as correct as possible, but the development and spread of SRI has not been based on scientific experiments, so many numbers reported are not as precise or validated by statistical analysis as most researchers would like.

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This memoire reports only numbers that we have reason to believe are representative of the real situation on the ground, being as accurate as the circumstances permit. Where comparisons are made, the numbers reported were obtained by using the same methods of measurement for both magnitudes compared. So if there was miscalculation of the absolute numbers, the ratios between the relative numbers should be reasonably reliable and informative. In agriculture, relative numbers comparing plots or fields at the same time or over time are more meaningful than are absolute ones.

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There has been no intent or reason to exaggerate or misrepresent data. Those who have reported these results had no personal stake or advantage in presenting superlative numbers. Indeed, to exaggerate or misrepresent data would go against the best interests of the farming communities whose benefit has been the main motivation for those who work with SRI, which is neither a proprietary nor a commercialized innovation.

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Effort has been made to arrive at and report the most accurate averages possible, often giving ranges where these are known. But in any case, it should be accepted on all sides that the case for SRI will not be proven or disproven by any particular set of numbers. Rather the strength of the case for SRI rests on a large body of experience and evidence. This said, there is a large body of rigorous research on SRI that has been published in the peer-reviewed literature which meets exacting scientific standards, consistent with and confirming what has been learned from conscientious field observations and reports.

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There have been occasional super-yields with SRI methods (Chapter 10) that have attracted attention but also criticism and opposition, sometimes even ire. Such results have been reported not boastfully or competitively, but to call attention to potentials that exist within rice and other genomes, potentials that are being elicited by SRI practices. Record yields are not in themselves of much significance anyway, except among some agricultural specialists. It is averages, ratios, trends, costs and various benefits that are of relevance for the farming community, for consumers, and for the environment.

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Accordingly, we present here only what we think is correct to the best of our knowledge and relevant to the tasks of benefiting food producers, consumers, and the environment. Any skeptics are invited to work with us in good faith to advance scientific understanding while also helping to make SRI opportunities for improving human, soil and environmental health more widely known and accessible wherever such improvements can be actualized.

 

THE DIALECTIC OF PROBABILITIES VS. POSSIBILITIES

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A recurring theme in this memoire is the tension between what exists – what is most likely under present circumstances and with current knowledge – and what could be – what is possible with initiatives that change our and others’ circumstances and that add to what is known. We should be careful that the latter is not just wishful thinking.[10] Wishful thinking can be harmful and delusional if unsupported by evidence that there is some reasonable possibility of its becoming real. At the same time, outside-the-box thinking is essential if the world is to be made a better, more secure, and more sustainable place. Looking for something better beyond the present situation is necessary for making progress. But it needs to be grounded in experience, facts, and theory, with tenable explanations.

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This tension and its fruitfulness or folly will be addressed in Part IV, in reflections on the SRI experience that are kept out of Parts I, II and III. In this introduction to the memoire, we simply note that much of the story can be characterized as an exploration of possibilities, of their validation and verification (Part I), of their championing (Part II), and their realization, their being made real and widespread (Part III).

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We need to be clear about the distinction between possibilities and probabilities. What is most likely to prevail in the absence of innovation, novel efforts and interventions? This is what is most probable. One of the unhappy realizations from the SRI experience is how powerful are the forces and counterforces of inertia. This impedance is supported by existing configurations of interests and power and reinforced by the weight of existing knowledge and thought, which give rise to traits like overconfidence and lack of curiosity.

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In life, and especially in the domain of development policy and activity, what is most probable is almost never what is most desirable. We do not live in the best of all possible worlds, far from it. And we have reason to expect that the future may be less rather than more accommodating of our aspirations and needs. No generation has had the certainty of a more beneficent future, all have had to create this. But our and future generations will have to reckon with the adverse conditions of climate change, with increasingly unfathomable and unmanageable complexity and vulnerability of our institutions, and with greater scarcity of living space and unspoiled natural resources as our populations grow.

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There are some promising technological, intellectual and social possibilities for coping with these challenges, so it is possible to summon up optimistic scenarios. We need always to be realistic about the probabilities that are shaped by known forces, trends and constraints, as well as by known unknowns and unknown unknowns, to use a memorable characterization. But we also need to be open to thinking outside of our present mental and institutional ‘boxes.’ Unless we can do so, and do so effectively and boldly, our future looks indeed grim.

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The SRI story is one of outside-the-box thinking and practice, starting with the efforts of an intelligent, independent-minded, and devoted French priest who spent much of his long life in Madagascar, working closely with a variety of Malagasy farmers and friends (Chapter 3). From his observations and testing he discerned possibilities that could countervail the surrounding reality of poverty and difficulty. How these possibilities were made into reality for millions of people over the past 20 years is the story of SRI so far.

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