[FLPERMACULTURE] Fw: Food Revolution That Starts With Rice

[Simon St.Laurent]

Jon Bosak wrote:
> 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.

Interesting.  We've been reading _The Power of Duck_, about a Japanese 
approach mixing rice, ducks, and nitrogen-fixers, and wondering if that 
very different approach could be used in central NY with wild rice or 
other grains...

We're just going to experiment, I guess, but I'd love to hear if other 
people have tried that route here too.

Thanks,
Simon St.Laurent
http://livingindryden.org/garden/


> ==================================================================
> 
> 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."
> 
> 
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