Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru, 560072, Karnataka, India
Online published on 13 December, 2019.
The high-yielding variety (HYV) programme transformed India from a food-scarce nation to a food-secure nation, but the excessive use of fertilizers degraded the soil quality, excessive use of tube wells led to a decline in the groundwater and poor pest management affected human health. With the size of landholdings declining and a decrease in the area under agriculture, it has become important to bring in modern technology to help increase the yield per hectare of land while sustaining the natural resources. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technology is said to increase yield and conserve resources. This paper studies the percentage increase in the yield of paddy using the SRI method of cultivation, the input quantity used and the determinants of farm-level adoption of SRI in Gaya district of Bihar using the logistic regression method. The results of the study depict that SRI leads to an increase in yield of paddy by 44–46% and decreases the use of inputs like seed and water. The main factors of SRI adoption were found to be the variables age, physical productivity and hours of irrigation.
