SRI in Orissa - Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture ...

in rest of India needs several learning alliances if it wants
to live up to the rising expectations from farmers across the
state and country. In this we draw upon SRI experiences
both in India and the rest of the world. We argue that SRI
as an innovation that is complex and constantly evolving
and dynamic needs a different kind of system architecture.
One that can not only keep pace with the evolving nature
of knowledge – technical and institutional, but also one
that can enable the faster generation and dissemination of
new knowledge, or innovation in short. For this to happen
learning alliances that build trust and synergise information
flow across diverse actors are necessary.
Rice in Orissa
Orissa state is a part of the South Eastern Indian subcontinent,
spreading through a geographical area of 155,707 sq. km. It
extends from 17.5 N to 22.8 N in latitude and 81.2 E to 87.6
E in longitude. The state has a cultivated area (net area sown
and current fallow) of 6.4m ha of a total geographical area
of 15.5m ha out of which 2.9m ha are high land, 1.9m ha
medium land and 1.6m ha low lands. The gross cropped area
is 8.4m ha. Rice is the most important food crop in Orissa
grown throughout the state covering over 53 % of the gross
cropped area, often as a single crop though with tremendous
diversity of rice varieties. The Jeypore tract of Koraput district
in Orissa is recognised as one of the secondary centres of
origin of cultivated rice in the world. The latin name of rice
Oryza Sativa is believed to derive its origin from Orissa or
Odra Desha that means the land of cultivators.
The cropping intensity is quite low in comparison to other
states of India and most parts of the state do not have
a second crop. The climatic conditions and landholding
pattern (predominantly small holder) has meant that
farming is largely subsistence and rainfed with low use of
inputs. Despite several interventions in the past to improve
productivity, there seems to be a mismatch between
technological efforts and farmers’ practices resulting in
large yield gaps and stagnant and even declining agricultural
productivity. 4
Details of the production patterns of rice in the state
have been analysed in the following chapters (see Tables
2.1 and 2.2, Figure 3.1 on rice productivity in comparison
with Indian average). In this chapter we present some
information on the vagaries of rice production across the
2
Towards a Learning Alliance: SRI in Orissa
thirty districts of Orissa. Rice is grown in all the districts
of the state with varying intensity depending on the
topography. The percentage of rice as total cropped area
is higher in the coastal plain areas such as Puri, Bhadrak,
Kendrapara and Balasore where the percentage is over 90%
whilst for districts such as Koraput, Gajapati and Rayagada
these figures are under 40% (refer to Appendix 1.1).
Apart from the low level of yields in the state overall and
across districts, there is a lot of fluctuation from year to
year. The variation in productivity across time is indicated
in Appendix 1.2 for a five year time period (1999-2000
to 2003-04) and indicates that all districts are affected
by seasonality and have wide fluctuations in productivity.
Bargarh reported the highest yields of 3.1 tonnes per hectare
(tph) in 2003-04 and Nuapada reported the lowest of 0.26
tph in 2002-03. For purpose of analysis two districts each
have been chosen for high, medium and low productivity
across the five year period. They are Bargarh and Bhadrak
from the top five rice producing districts, Mayurbhanj &
Kandhamal from medium productivity and Nuapada and
Sundergarh of low productivity. Figure 1.1 captures this
fluctuation for six districts of the state.
The highest rice producing district, Bargarh had a 43.46%
decline in the year 2000-01 from 1999-00, whereas Bhadrak
had an increase of 101% of the yield rate in the same year.
In the year 2001-02 almost all the districts produced higher
than two previous years except Khurda, which had a decline
of 3.25%. Nuapada had the highest of 320% rise in yield rate
in 2001-02. In the year 2002-03 again the rice yield fell down.
Nuapada achieved an highest of 646.15% increase than
2002-03. Similarly Bhadrak, which faced a biggest fall down
in 2002-03 with 81.05 % of its previous year rate, increased
its productivity by 648.28%. It is indeed difficult to discern
4 See Kshirsagar, K.G., S. Pandey and M. R. Bellon. 2002. Farmer perceptions, varietal characteristics and technology adoption: The Case of a Rainfed Rice Village in
Orissa. Economic and Political Weekly. Feb. 23, pp 1239-1246.
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
1.15
Fig. 1.1: Year-wise rice yield in
selected districts
0.99
1.57
0.75
1999.00 2000.01 2001-02 2002-03 2004-05
Bargarh Bhadrak Mayurbhanj Kandhamal
Nuapada Sundargarh Orissa
2.27