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Zarraga farmers’ association promotes ‘low-tech’ method ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY: ROEYNA MAY FAMISARAN
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ILOILO City – The Zarraga Integrated Diversified Organic Farmers Association (ZIDOFA) is promoting the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to help farmers get greater yield.
SRI, a management strategy for crop improvement, allows farmers to use less seeds and water, giving them great returns from their capital, explained Joby Arandela, ZIDOFA chairman.
“The System of Rice Intensification, a low-tech approach, is a method or rice cultivation which uses 50 percent less water and 90 percent less seeds yet it allows the farmers the capability to produce even more than [they] did with conventional chemical rice farming,” Arandela said.
SRI, now utilized by more than 5 million farmers worldwide, has won global recognition for being climate-friendly.
“This is because it utilizes intermittent irrigation which takes away the usual practice of flooding rice paddies for long periods of time. This causes aerobic conditions in the soil which reduces the emission of greenhouse gas methane,” Arandela noted.
The ZIDOFA chief furthermore explained that SRI relies more on agronomic factors to provide optimum conditions for the rice plants to show their true potential to thrive.
“Thus, if the SRI principles are strictly followed, there is profuse tillering by the SRI rice plant which has never been manifested in conventionally grown rice. The periodic rotary weeding coupled with intermittent irrigation also allows the rice plant to develop substantial root architectures which results in larger and deeper root balls. This is an excellent adaptation measure especially for prolonged drought events as the deeper-reaching roots are still able to access moisture deeper in to the soil biota which the less substantial root systems of conventional rice plants could never reach. This also allows the SRI rice plant to sequester atmospheric and organic carbon deeper into the soil horizon which makes it a good mitigation characteristic for climate change,” he said.
“Continued practice of organic SRI on rice paddies restore soil biodiversity and fertility which results in higher yields without the dependence on chemicals and synthetic fertilizers,” Arandela added.
ZIDOFA is an organization dedicated to “create a closed-loop organic food value chain which covers the whole spectrum of activities in the chain.” It helps small-farmers who are interested in converting some of their land to organic farm areas undergo series of trainings and seminars. ZIDOFA’s assistance continues until post-harvest drying and milling, packaging and marketing./PN
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