How Does SRI Compare with Best Management Practices?
SRI was developed to benefit smaller, poorer farmers, to counter their problems of poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation. It was not conceived or presented as being in competition with what rice scientists call best management practices (BMP). BMPs are heavily depending on purchased inputs and are thus beyond the reach of those rural households who are most in need of greater productivity and income. However, when SRI practices are used to best effect, their results have matched or even surpassed those associated with Green Revolution’ technologies. This has ignited considerable controversy, with some scientists defensively insisting that — however beneficial SRI might be for poorer farmers — these alternative practices are inferior to what can be achieved by using the results of modern plant breeding and inorganic soil amendments. Critics have been particularly upset by the reports of occasional super-yields with SRI methods as these are above what rice scientists have calc
