[FLPERMACULTURE] Fw: Food Revolution That Starts With Rice

[Jon Bosak]

Does anyone know whether this method can be used to grow rice here
in CNY?  There's a URL for the S.R.I. site down in the article.

Jon

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The New York Times
June 17, 2008
Scientist at Work | Norman T. Uphoff
Food Revolution That Starts With Rice
By WILLIAM J. BROAD

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Many a professor dreams of revolution. But Norman
T. Uphoff, working in a leafy corner of the Cornell University
campus, is leading an inconspicuous one centered on solving the
global food crisis. The secret, he says, is a new way of growing
rice.

Rejecting old customs as well as the modern reliance on genetic
engineering, Dr. Uphoff, 67, an emeritus professor of government
and international agriculture with a trim white beard and a tidy
office, advocates a management revolt.

Harvests typically double, he says, if farmers plant early, give
seedlings more room to grow and stop flooding fields. That cuts
water and seed costs while promoting root and leaf growth.

The method, called the System of Rice Intensification, or S.R.I.,
emphasizes the quality of individual plants over the quantity. It
applies a less-is-more ethic to rice cultivation.

In a decade, it has gone from obscure theory to global trend --
and encountered fierce resistance from established rice
scientists. Yet a million rice farmers have adopted the system,
Dr. Uphoff says. The rural army, he predicts, will swell to 10
million farmers in the next few years, increasing rice harvests,
filling empty bellies and saving untold lives.

"The world has lots and lots of problems," Dr. Uphoff said
recently while talking of rice intensification and his 38 years at
Cornell. "But if we can’t solve the problems of peoples’ food
needs, we can’t do anything. This, at least, is within our reach."

That may sound audacious given the depths of the food crisis and
the troubles facing rice. Roughly half the world eats the grain as
a staple food even as yields have stagnated and prices have
soared, nearly tripling in the past year. The price jolt has
provoked riots, panicked hoarding and violent protests in poor
countries.

But Dr. Uphoff has a striking record of accomplishment, as well as
a gritty kind of farm-boy tenacity.

He and his method have flourished despite the skepticism of his
Cornell peers and the global rice establishment -- especially the
International Rice Research Institute, which helped start the
green revolution of rising grain production and specializes in
improving rice genetics.

His telephone rings. It is the World Bank Institute, the
educational and training arm of the development bank. The
institute is making a DVD to spread the word.

"That’s one of the irons in the fire," he tells a visitor, looking
pleased before plunging back into his tale.

Dr. Uphoff’s improbable journey involves a Wisconsin dairy farm, a
billionaire philanthropist, the jungles of Madagascar, a Jesuit
priest, ranks of eager volunteers and, increasingly, the
developing world. He lists top S.R.I. users as India, China,
Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam among 28 countries on three
continents.

In Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India, Veerapandi S. Arumugam,
the agriculture minister, recently hailed the system as
"revolutionizing" paddy farming while spreading to "a staggering"
million acres.

Chan Sarun, Cambodia’s agriculture minister, told hundreds of
farmers at an agriculture fair in April that S.R.I.’s speedy
growth promises a harvest of "white gold."

On Cornell’s agricultural campus, Dr. Uphoff runs a one-man show
from an office rich in travel mementos. From Sri Lanka, woven rice
stalks adorn a wall, the heads thick with rice grains.

His computers link him to a global network of S.R.I. activists and
backers, like Oxfam, the British charity. Dr. Uphoff is S.R.I.’s
global advocate, and his Web site (ciifad.cornell.edu/sri/) serves
as the main showcase for its principles and successes.

"It couldn’t have happened without the Internet," he says. Outside
his door is a sign, "Alfalfa Room," with a large arrow pointing
down the hall, seemingly to a pre-electronic age.

Critics dismiss S.R.I. as an illusion.

"The claims are grossly exaggerated," said Achim Dobermann, the
head of research at the international rice institute, which is
based in the Philippines. Dr. Dobermann said fewer farmers use
S.R.I. than advertised because old practices often are counted as
part of the trend and the method itself is often watered down.

"We don’t doubt that good yields can be achieved," he said, but he
called the methods too onerous for the real world.

By contrast, a former skeptic sees great potential. Vernon
W. Ruttan, an agricultural economist at the University of
Minnesota and a longtime member of the National Academy of
Sciences, once worked for the rice institute and doubted the
system’s prospects.

Dr. Ruttan now calls himself an enthusiastic fan, saying the
method is already reshaping the world of rice cultivation. "I
doubt it will be as great as the green revolution," he said. "But
in some areas it’s already having a substantial impact."

Robert Chambers, a leading analyst on rural development, who works
at the University of Sussex, England, called it a breakthrough.

"The extraordinary thing," he said, "is that both farmers and
scientists have missed this -- farmers for thousands of years, and
scientists until very recently and then some of them in a state of
denial."

The method, he added, "has a big contribution to make to world
food supplies. Its time has come."

Dr. Uphoff grew up on a Wisconsin farm milking cows and doing
chores. In 1966, he graduated from Princeton with a master’s
degree in public affairs and in 1970 from the University of
California, Berkeley, with a doctorate in political science.

At Cornell, he threw himself into rural development, irrigation
management and credit programs for small farmers in the developing
world.

In 1990, a secret philanthropist (eventually revealed to be
Charles F. Feeney, a Cornell alumnus who made billions in
duty-free shops) gave the university $15 million to start a
program on world hunger. Dr. Uphoff was the institute’s director
for 15 years.

The directorship took him in late 1993 to
Madagascar. Slash-and-burn rice farming was destroying the rain
forest, and Dr. Uphoff sought alternatives.

He heard that a French Jesuit priest, Father Henri de Laulanié,
had developed a high-yield rice cultivation method on Madagascar
that he called the System of Rice Intensification.

Dr. Uphoff was skeptical. Rice farmers there typically harvested
two tons per hectare (an area 100 by 100 meters, or 2.47
acres). The group claimed 5 to 15 tons.

"I remember thinking, 'Do they think they can scam me?’ "
Dr. Uphoff recalled. "I told them, 'Don’t talk 10 or 15 tons. No
one at Cornell will believe it. Let’s shoot for three or four.’ "

Dr. Uphoff oversaw field trials for three years, and the farmers
averaged eight tons per hectare. Impressed, he featured S.R.I. on
the cover of his institute’s annual reports for 1996 and 1997.

Dr. Uphoff never met the priest, who died in 1995. But the success
prompted him to scrutinize the method and its origins.

One clear advantage was root vigor. The priest, during a drought,
had noticed that rice plants and especially roots seemed much
stronger. That led to the goal of keeping fields damp but not
flooded, which improved soil aeration and root growth.

Moreover, wide spacing let individual plants soak up more sunlight
and send out more tillers -- the shoots that branch to the
side. Plants would send out upwards of 100 tillers. And each
tiller, instead of bearing the usual 100 or so grains, would puff
up with 200 to 500 grains.

One drawback was weeds. The halt to flooding let invaders take
root, and that called for more weeding. A simple solution was a
rotating, hand-pushed hoe, which also aided soil aeration and crop
production.

But that meant more labor, at least at first. It seemed that as
farmers gained skill, and yields rose, the overall system became
labor saving compared with usual methods.

Dr. Uphoff knew the no-frills approach went against the culture of
modern agribusiness but decided it was too good to ignore. In
1998, he began promoting it beyond Madagascar, traveling the
world, "sticking my neck out," as he put it.

Slowly, it caught on, but visibility brought critics. They
dismissed the claims as based on wishful thinking and poor record
keeping, and did field trials that showed results similar to
conventional methods.

In 2006, three of Dr. Uphoff’s colleagues at Cornell wrote a
scathing analysis based on global data. "We find no evidence,"
they wrote, "that S.R.I. fundamentally changes the physiological
yield potential of rice."

While less categorical, Dr. Dobermann of the rice research
institute called the methods a step backward socially because they
increased drudgery in rice farming, especially among poor women.

In his Cornell office, Dr. Uphoff said his critics were biased and
knew little of S.R.I.’s actual workings. The method saves labor
for most farmers, including women, he said. As for the skeptics’
field trials, he said, they were marred by problems like using
soils dead from decades of harsh chemicals and monocropping, which
is the growing of the same crop on the same land year after year.

"The critics have tried to say it’s all zealotry and religious
belief," Dr. Uphoff sighed. "But it’s science. I find myself
becoming more and more empirical, judging things by what works."

His computer seems to hum with proof. A recent report from the
Timbuktu region of Mali, on the edge of the Sahara Desert, said
farmers had raised rice yields 34 percent, despite initial
problems with S.R.I. guideline observance.

In Laos, an agriculture official recently said S.R.I. had doubled
the size of rice crops in three provinces and would spread to the
whole country because it provided greater yields with fewer
resources.

"Once we get over the mental barriers," Dr. Uphoff said, "it can
go very, very quickly because there’s nothing to buy."

The opponents have agreed to conduct a global field trial that may
end the dispute, he said. The participants include the rice
institute, Cornell and Wageningen University, a Dutch institution
with a stellar reputation in agriculture.

The field trials may start in 2009 and run through 2011,
Dr. Uphoff said. "This should satisfy any scientific questions,"
he added. "But my sense is that S.R.I. is moving so well and so
fast that this will be irrelevant."

Practically, he said, the method is destined to grow.

"It raises the productivity of land, labor, water and capital," he
said. "It’s like playing with a stacked deck. So I know we’re
going to win."