Author(s): R. GHOSHAL AND D. BASU

Abstract: Rice is a staple food for about 50 per cent of the world’s population. In much of India, rice is the main food. In the Green Revolution, the yield of paddy was increased. But the large increases in production of paddy were restricted to irrigated belts of the country. Almost 20 years ago, the System of Rice Intensification (SRI rice cultivation) came to light in India . SRI is an agroecologically-based system of production of rice, relying on changes in management rather than on different or increased material inputs. SRI involves the application of certain practices which all together provide better growing conditions for rice plants, particularly in the root zone, compared to those for plants grown under traditional practices. This system offers to promise to overcome the shortages of water constraining irrigated rice production because the larger and better root systems promoted enable rice plants to thrive with less water application. This study was conducted in three villages of North 24 Parganas district with the objective to observe the merits and demerits of SRI in farmers’ fields. From the study it can be concluded that farmers who cultivated paddy in SRI method got more grain yield than with traditional methods as all yieldcontributing parameters of the plants were much higher with SRI methods in comparison to non-SRI methods, and the requirements of irrigation water, plant-protection chemicals, and chemical fertilizer were all much less with SRI methods in comparison to non-SRI methods.

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