How Can SRI Benefit the Poor?
SRI was purposefully developed to benefit poor, resource-limited, food-insecure households who needed to get the most productivity attainable from the small amount of land they manage and from available supply of household labor, with less water if possible, and without having to buy external inputs (new seeds, fertilizer, agrochemicals) that can push them (further) into debt. By raising the productivity of the land, labor, water and capital invested in the production of rice without requiring the purchase of external inputs, SRI is unique among contemporary agricultural innovations. It is accessible to poor households because they need only to change their thinking and modify familiar practices. SRI does not present the kind of barriers to adoption that have kept Green Revolution technologies from benefiting many of the worlds poor households. Presently, probably more than 400 million people in rice-producing areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America are afflicted with chronic hunger (S
