The Need for Sustainable Rice Cultivation Practices
The present chapter will dwell on the major rice production technologies by discussing the importance of sustainable agricultural practices in general and rice cultivation in particular. Section 3.2 of this chapter will talk about the major rice productio
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The Need for Sustainable Rice Cultivation Practices
3.1
Introduction
The present chapter will dwell on the major rice production technologies by discussing the importance of sustainable agricultural practices in general and rice cultivation in particular. Section 3.2 of this chapter will talk about the major rice production technologies, and Sect. 3.3 will highlight the need for sustainable agricultural practices. The importance of system of crop intensification in general and the SRI in particular are discussed in detail in Sects. 3.4 and 3.5.
3.2
Rice Production Technologies
The Green Revolution that was initiated in the 1960s had a profound impact on the Indian rice economy. Since 1960s, India started partnership with International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). This led to the introduction of IR8 high-yielding rice variety. Subsequently, more than 400 improved rice varieties with resistance to pests and diseases were also introduced. This helped in streamlining rice production practices and extensive information exchange with Indian rice scientists (Revilla-Molina et al. 2012). In addition, there was commercialisation of hybrid rice in India due to the partnership with IRRI. Yamano et al. (2016) has provided a detailed review of the new rice technologies that have been developed by international agricultural research centres in collaboration with their partners. The focus of the review was on technologies that have been already adopted by the farmers.
3.2.1
Adoption and Impact of Improved Germplasm
Ever since the introduction of modern variety IR8 that was made available to millions of farmers in Asia and Africa, various improvements in the rice varieties © Centre for Management in Agriculture (CMA), Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) 2017 P. Varma, Rice Productivity and Food Security in India, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3692-7_3
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3 The Need for Sustainable Rice Cultivation Practices
have taken place to enable countries to make rice accessible and affordable. This helped in achieving the objectives of food security. Along with the development, adoption and diffusion of modern rice varieties, there have been plenty of studies analysing the impact of the adoption of modern rice varieties in general (Khanal and Maharjan 2014; Tiongco and Hossain 2016) and for India in particular (Singh and Kumar 2014; Bansal and Ward 2015). A lower growth rate in rice yield during the late 1990s and the early 2000s raised questions about the effectiveness of rice breeding programmes. In South Asia, farmers continuously use older modern rice varieties that were released more than several decades ago (Pandey et al. 2015). For example, Swarna, which was released in 1979, is planted on 4.3 million ha or more than 30% of the total rice area in the three eastern Indian states of West Bengal, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh. In Bangladesh, two varieties dominate the Boro season: BRRI dhan28 (released in 1994, accounting for 19% of rice area) and BRRI dhan29 (released in 1994, planted on 14% of rice area). During the
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