Does SRI Require More Labor?
Initially, when farmers are starting to learn the new methods, it takes more time to use them well. Handling tiny young seedlings, when farmers are used to handling larger, more mature ones, can be a little worrisome, and transplanting may go slowly. However, once farmers get accustomed to the new methods, they can do the practices more quickly. Depending on the difficulty of controlling water, applying small amounts of water regularly can take more time or less — than keeping the field always flooded. Overall we find that as farmers become comfortable with and more confident in SRI practices, this alternative system is labor-neutral, i.e., does not increase labor, or it can even become labor-saving, reducing labor requirements. The evaluation of SRI by Moser and Barrett (2003) that first raised the issue of labor-intensity was surely correct for the villages surveyed in Madagascar. However, a subsequent evaluation by these authors with two other colleagues (Barnett et al., 2004), wit
