Science, Practice and Social Movements in Indian Agriculture: Exploring the System of Rice Intensification (SRI).

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a novel approach to rice cultivation that is claimed to be both more productive and more sustainable than conventional methods. Such claims have been challenged or dismissed by many rice scientists, however. Furthermore, the technical features of SRI are not precisely defined. Nevertheless, despite the lack of clear and unequivocal endorsement by science, practices labelled SRI have spread widely and quickly to many rice-growing regions, including various areas of India. SRI's spread could be seen as surprising, in a context where formally institutionalised efforts to promote recommended technologies and sound management practices often meet with limited success in changing farmers' behaviour. SRI's spread can perhaps best be explained by viewing it as a social movement, as much as a set of particular practices or technologies. In that respect, from its beginnings in Madagascar during the 1970s, SRI appears to represent a form of grassroots innovation that emerged and spread through networks operating outside the hierarchies of formal agricultural science. This paper explores the important lessons that SRI may therefore hold, regarding the drivers and dynamics of technical change in agriculture and particularly with regard to the relationship between formal/scientific and informal/practical kinds of expertise. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]