Full-boil innovation

The institutions involved in the experiments have begun educating the farmers about this revolutionary agricultural practice,which is touted as being more suitable than transplanting rice.

In the transplanting method,seedlings are first raised in the seedbed before they are planted in the main field whereas in direct seeding,the seed is sown directly in the main field.

Direct seeding,thus,does not require much labour,needs less water and even advances the timing of sowing of rice crop in the kharif season,thereby allowing farmers to go for crop diversification.

Former head,South Asia Programme,International Rice Research Institute (IRRI),R K Singh,who is at present apprising UP farmers about the benefits of DSR,says,“This season’s target is 250 farmers; in the next three years,we will try and bring three lakh farmers under DSR cultivation.”

Explaining the advantages of direct seeded rice,Singh says,“While rice is traditionally sown in May and June,which is the end of the dry season,wheat is grown after the monsoon in November or December after rice is harvested. The rice-wheat rotation is the principal cropping pattern of the Indo-Gangetic Plains and covers some 13.5 million hectares of agricultural land. About 3,000 to 4,000 litres of water is required to produce one kilo of rice,a cause for concern for farmers given the growing scarcity of water. Besides,there is also a dearth of labour,which is needed for the crop if it is sown in the manner of transplantation. The problem has led to many farmers shifting from growing rice to other crops. The need was felt for new ways to grow rice the same way as wheat is grown,without going in for nursery raising and transplanting.”

In UP,the 86 farmers who sowed DSR found that the rice crop,which took at least four months to be ready for harvesting,took lesser time. They could even take an in-between crop of potato or mustard before sowing wheat.

“I grow Kalanamak but due to its long duration and late harvesting,I was unable to grow a rabi crop. With DSR’s advanced maturity of 12 days,I could sow a short-duration variety of wheat,Halna,and harvest 4 tonnes per hectare yield in comparison to 1-1.5 tonnes of wheat,” said Shivzur Rehman of Sisai village in Sant Kabir Nagar district.

Singh is organising orientation workshops and kisan melas,too,are lined up this month in which the farmers would be given booklets of “dos and don’ts” while growing direct seeded rice.

New rice

The project

The Direct Seeded Rice project is a multi-institutional project,which involves institutions like Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agricultural Training,Pantnagar,Agriculture University,Faizabad,Ram Krishna Mission and others as Indian partners and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI),Philippines,NRI and SWIMMER of UK as western counterparts.

DSR was introduced last year in the states of Uttar Pradesh,Bihar and West Bengal under Poverty Alleviation through Rice Innovation Systems (PARIS) programme of the DFID (Department of Finance for International Development) ,a UK government -supported project.