Elsevier

Field Crops Research

Volume 121, Issue 1, 28 February 2011, Pages 53-63
Field Crops Research

Direct-seeded rice culture in Sri Lanka: Lessons from farmers

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2010.11.009Get rights and content

Abstract

About 95% of the rice grown in Sri Lanka is direct-seeded (wet- and dry-seeding). The average rough rice yield in irrigated predominantly direct-seeded dry zone (DZ) is about 5.0 t ha−1and in the wet zone (WZ) it is about 3.3 t ha−1. However the average realizable yield in DZ and WZ are 8 t ha−1 and 5 t ha−1 respectively. A survey was conducted to understand the cultural practices, farmers’ perceptions and the reasons for the yield gap in direct-seeded rice culture in Sri Lanka. Farmers’ seed rate ranged from 87 to 220 kg ha−1 for intermediate bold-type varieties and from 71 to 176 kg ha−1 for varieties with short round grains. About 90% of the farmers in the DZ and the intermediate zone (IZ) consider both yield potential and duration as criteria in selecting a variety. Among the farmers surveyed, only 21% of the farmers in the DZ, 13% of the farmers in the IZ, and 29% of the farmers in the WZ adhered to the recommended method of basal fertilizer application. Farmers did not adhere to the correct timing of fertilizer application. More than 50% of the cost for rice farming goes to labor, followed by cost of inputs in all climatic zones. Farmers reported that the most important production constraint for direct-seeded rice in the DZ and IZ is the non availability of reliable labor followed by soil problems and weeds. While in the WZ, it is the soil problems specially iron toxicity followed by lower soil fertility. The survey revealed that smaller land holding size, non adherence to the optimum time of farm activity initiation, less efficient use of rain water, higher seed rate and higher cost of production are a few reasons for the existing yield gap. Location-specific technologies for different agro-ecological zones of Sri Lanka should be developed to reduce the cost of production and to increase resource-use efficiency and should be transferred to the farmers to achieve sustainable optimum direct-seeded rice yields.

Introduction

About 90% of the world rice is produced and consumed in Asia. It is the staple food of Sri Lankans with a per capita consumption of about 115 kg of rice/year. Rice provides 45% of the total calorie requirement and 40% of the total protein requirement of an average Sri Lankan (Census and Statistics, 2007). Rice crop occupies 17.6% (0.7 million ha) of the total agricultural land area in the island (Agstat, 2008) which is cultivated twice during major (Maha) and minor (Yala) seasons. Rice cultivation practices were predominantly manual and done by about 1.8 million farm families which comprised of 11.6% of the total population or 32% of the total labor force (Amarasinghe and Liyanage, 2001). In 2009, Sri Lanka produced 96% of the rice requirement which is 3.65 million tons of rough rice with a national average yield of 4.34 t ha−1 (Census and Statistics, 2009). Rice contributed 14.2% to total agricultural GDP of the island (Central Bank, 2009).

Sri Lanka produced 3.65 million tons of rough rice in 2009 (FAO, 2010). According to the projection, Sri Lanka would require about 5.03 million tons of rough rice in year 2030 (Table 1, Weerakoon et al., 2010b) which will have to be produced with less land, less labor, and less water. Furthermore, serious challenges with biotic pressure have to be controlled with limited use of chemicals while sociological changes continue to limit productivity and profitability in rice farming. To avoid imports and meet the demand of the nation's increasing population, there is an urgent need to improve rice productivity by understanding farmers’ concepts of rice production and undertaking essential research and extension efforts to increase rice productivity and production in Sri Lanka

Pre-historic existence of rice is evident in Sri Lanka by the presence of endemic cultivars, wild species and land races. Documented history of rice cultivation dates back to 600 BC (Mahawamsaya, 1837) and it is generally believed that rice cultivation was started by Indo-Aryan immigrants. Between 1153 and 1186, era of King “Greate Prakrama Bahu” made island self sufficient in rice using the ancient cascade systems of irrigation with networks of tanks built by Sri Lanka's ancient kings (Mahawamsaya, 1837). During that time most rice lands were cultivated only during the major rainy season as a direct-seeded crop with minimum external inputs. Cultivars used, were exclusively traditional and mostly of long duration and some of them were photoperiod sensitive. Almost all cultivars were tall with droopy leaves which may have helped the direct-seeded rice crop to overcome heavy weed infestation (Senadhira et al., 1980). Transplanting has not been documented except manual planting of seedlings to fill gaps in direct-seeded plots in early 1900s. Later with the introduction of transplanted technology in 1960s, rice area under direct-seeding dropped to about 70%. Subsequently with reduced availability of labor along with the increased cost for manual transplanting and limited increases in the yields with the transplanting of short-duration varieties, cultivated area under direct-seeding increased again to more than 95% in 2008 in Sri Lanka (Fig. 1) (RRDI, 2008).

In Sri Lanka, compared with many other rice-growing countries, rice is grown under a wide range of physical environments with different elevations, soils, and hydrological regimes. The elevation ranges from 0 to 2575 m above sea level and the temperature ranges from 30 °C at sea level to about 15 °C at the uppermost elevations. Rice lands are distributed in almost all these agro-ecological environments except for elevations above 2000 m (Gunatilaka and Somasiri, 1995).

Two monsoons, northeast (December to February) and southwest (May to September), and two inter-monsoons bring rains to the country. According to the spatial and regional distribution of rainfall, Sri Lanka is divided mainly into three climatic zones, the wet zone (rainfall >2500 mm) (WZ), the dry zone (rainfall <1500 mm) (DZ), and the intermediate zone (rainfall 1500–2500 mm) (IZ).

Rice lands are distributed in 31 out of 46 different agro-ecological regions (Punyawardena, 2009). About 36% of the total land extent is rainfed and the balance is irrigated (Dhanapala, 1999). Irrigated paddy lands are further classified into major irrigation (cultivated extent from a particular water source is more than 80 ha) and minor irrigation (cultivated extent from a particular water source is less than 80 ha). In the DZ, more than 61% of the farmers are engaged in rice production (Amarasinghe et al., 1999).

Agro-climatically, the year is divided into two seasons coinciding with the monsoons as “Maha” and “Yala” and rice lands are cultivated in these two distinct seasons. The major rice cultivation season, Maha, which is from late September to February, is fed with inter-monsoon rain and with the northeast monsoon, which is well distributed all over the island. The minor cultivation season, Yala, that is from early April to early September, brings rain mostly to the southwest region of Sri Lanka. Therefore, the extent under paddy cultivation in Yala is lower than Maha.

Farmers adopt different types of direct-seeding and associated agronomic practices in rice cultivation in Sri Lanka because of variation in water availability, soil type, cultivating season, and socioeconomic status. Thus, rice yields also vary across seasons in different rice ecosystems. Specifically, in 2009 Maha season, average rough rice yield in the irrigated DZ was about 5.14 t ha−1 and in the WZ it was about 3.39 t ha−1 (Weerakoon et al., 2010b). Department of Agriculture (2007) reported that the average realizable yield potential of rice is, 8 t ha−1 (Table 1), in the low-country DZ and IZ, where solar radiation and other climatic parameters are conducive and the edaphic environment is relatively favorable. Apart from relatively low solar radiation during Yala, lower yield potential in the WZ is also due to excess water associated with various soil problems (Abeysiriwardena, 2000). A majority of farmers fail to achieve realizable yield. The realisable yield obtained by farmers by adoption of a technology package (Dhanapala, 1999, Weerakoon, 2002, Weerakoon et al., 2000, Weerakoon et al., 2010b) advocated by researchers of the Department of Agriculture of Sri Lanka resulted in yield as high as 11 t ha−1 (Emitiyagoda et al., 2010). The gap in yield between the best agronomic and economical farm practices and the actual yield harvested by average farmer is still large (Department of Agriculture, 2007, Weerakoon et al., 2010b). There is an urgent need to bridge the yield gap to meet the future demand (Weerakoon et al., 2000, Weerakoon et al., 2010b). Due to practicality, convenience, and economic benefits, the direct-seeding will continue to be most popular in Sri Lanka and likely to expand in other Asian countries (Kumar and Ladha, in press). Our hypothesis was that the learning's from the experiences of farmers those who have been practicing direct-seeding over long-time would help in developing a research and extension agenda to increase productivity and production of rice in Sri Lanka.

Therefore the objectives of this paper were to: (a) summarize soil and crop management practices adopted by farmers in direct-seeded rice culture in Sri Lanka, (b) understand the reasons for yield gap, (c) identify factors limiting rice productivity and suggest technological options to overcome those limitations, and (d) propose research needs for the future.

Section snippets

Methodology

The study included the collection of primary data through a survey using a structured questionnaire and secondary data from published and unpublished reports.

A field survey was conducted covering all major rice-growing ecosystems of Sri Lanka to understand the cultural practices used by farmers, production constraints, and economics of direct-seeded rice cultivation in Sri Lanka. Socio-demographic profile, land ownership, rice management practices used by farmers, identifying biotic and abiotic

Size of landholding and ownership

Majority of farmers owned rice land area of 1–1.5 ha in the irrigated DZ and IZ and 0.5 ha in the WZ (Table 2). This relatively small land-holdings resulted from land fragmentation over generations and the undulating terrain in the DZ. In addition, the plot size within each farm was much smaller because of farmers inability to manage large plots as most operations were done manually.

Survey also revealed that many farmers especially in the DZ major irrigation schemes either abandoned or leased

Conclusions and recommendations

The direct-seeding of rice has been widely practiced during last several decades in Sri Lanka. Much improvements have been made and much potential exists. The farmer's survey described in the present study identified several short to long-term measures to enhance the productivity and production needed to meet the growing demand of next 20–30 years. Growing shortages of labor and water dictate the need of major changes in the way direct-seeding is practiced in Sri Lanka. These include:

  • i.

Acknowledgements

Authors wish to acknowledge the support given by the Director and staff of Rice Research and Development Institute and Extension and Training Center of the Department of Agriculture, Sri Lanka for conducting the survey and providing all other necessary facilities to write this paper on Direct-Seeded Rice Culture in Sri Lanka. The authors thank the reviewers and Dr. J.M. Lenné for the excellent suggestions to improve the paper. The financial and technical support rendered by the International

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