This report published by the WWF India and the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar  documents the history of the practice of SRI in India in the last few years and presents some of the institutional changes and challenges that SRI throws up. SRI is a fascinating case of rural innovation that has been developed outside the formal rice research establishment both in India and the rest of the world.

The first part of the report looks at the complex and continuing evolution of SRI in India and presents SRI as an innovation in process and not as a completed product. Farmers and other actors are continuously shaping it through their practice. The second part of the report draws some of the insights from the innovation systems framework  to understand SRI by looking closely at the nature and quality of linkages of the various actors. The author then concludes by highlighting some features of SRI in India and its implications for pro-poor innovation.

The report is divided into the following chapters:

System of Rice Intensification in India: Innovation History and Institutional Challenges

Complex Evolution of SRI in India

• Civil Society Origins of SRI
• SRI in India: A Slow Start
• An Alternate History of Innovation Networks
• Acceleration of SRI: New Actors and Partnerships
• WWF Dialogue Project and SRI
• SRI in Other States

Innovation Systems and SRI

• SRI and the Agricultural Establishment: Extension-led Research
• Non-research Actors in SRI

SRI and Rural Innovation: Summary, Insights and Implications

• SRI as Enabling Grassroots Innovation
• Innovation is About Providing Greater Choice and Multiple Meanings
• Insights into the Generation and Use of New Knowledge
• Innovation in Process and Tacit Knowledge
• Knowledge in the Public Domain
• Role of Networks
• Role of Champions
• Responding to External Triggers
• The Importance of Habits and Practices
• Role of Civil Society
• Policy Implications

Reconfiguring Agricultural Research: Biggest Challenge Facing SRI

The report can be downloaded from below: