How Has SRI Been Disseminated within and among Countries?
SRI is a civil society innovation that did not originate through the usual channels of agricultural scientific research. Rather, it was assembled through decades of work by Fr. de Laulani, seeking to find simple, low-cost, accessible ways for farmers to increase the productivity of their land, labor, water and capital when growing irrigated rice. The beneficial insights that Laulani gained from working with rice plants and farmers, and the methods that he consequently put together, can be extended to unirrigated rice production and to growing other crops. Clearly, SRI is not a typical technology that can or should be extended in the way that most agricultural innovations have been spread in recent decades. There was initially little interest in SRI from government personnel in Madagascar or from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) representatives in the country, so responsibility for further evaluation and dissemination of SRI fell first to the NGO that Laulani and several
