A groundbreaking agricultural approach known as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) could hold the key to solving the Philippines’ decades-long rice shortage, potentially doubling national productivity, saving the government hundreds of billions in irrigation costs, and significantly cutting climate-warming emissions, a new comprehensive study has found.
The paper, titled “Scaling Up System of Rice Intensification (SRI) for Philippine Food Security,” positions SRI not merely as a farming technique but as a transformative national strategy for achieving food sovereignty, ecological resilience, and economic prosperity.
Breaking the Cycle of Dependency
The Philippines, despite its agricultural heritage, has remained a rice-deficit country, importing 15-25% of its annual needs. This dependency, costing an estimated ₱145 billion per year, undermines national sovereignty and leaves the country vulnerable to global price shocks.
“A country that cannot feed its people cannot claim full autonomy,” the study states, highlighting rice as the true “barometer of food security” for Filipinos, who derive 45% to 70% of their daily calories from it.
Current local production of 12.86 million metric tons (unmilled) falls significantly short of the 15 million metric ton demand. The SRI method is presented as a powerful, homegrown solution to bridge this gap.
What is SRI and How Does It Work?
The System of Rice Intensification is a climate-smart methodology that optimizes the management of plants, soil, water, and nutrients. Its core principles include:
- Transplanting very young seedlings (8-15 days old).
- Wide, square spacing (e.g., 25×25 cm to 40×40 cm) with only one seedling per hill.
- Alternating wetting and drying (AWD) of fields instead of continuous flooding.
- Prioritizing organic fertilization and reducing agrochemicals.
These practices lead to dramatically healthier root systems and more productive tillers. Successful trials in Mindanao, Leyte, and the Ifugao rice terraces have yielded up to 12 tons per hectare, dwarfing the national average of 4-5 tons per hectare.
A Triple Win: Planet, People, and Prosperity
The study quantifies the immense benefits of scaling SRI across the Philippines:
- Economic Revitalization: Achieving rice self-sufficiency on 2 million hectares could generate up to ₱225 billion in direct annual income for farmers (approximately ₱100,000/hectare) and contribute 1.5-2% to the national GDP.
- Massive Government Savings: By doubling yields on existing land, the Philippines can meet its demand without expanding irrigated areas. This avoids the need for costly new irrigation infrastructure on 500,000 hectares, saving the nation between ₱250 billion and ₱500 billion.
- Climate and Environmental Gains: SRI is a powerful tool against climate change. It drastically reduces methane emissions—a potent greenhouse gas from flooded rice fields—and sequesters carbon in the soil. Full adoption could cut emissions by nearly 20 million tons of CO₂ equivalent annually.
Paying Farmers for Ecological Service
A key recommendation of the study is to financially compensate farmers for the environmental benefits they provide. It calculates that SRI adopters should be rewarded ₱48,466 per hectare per year for quantifiable climate co-benefits, including:
- Methane Reduction: ₱23,200
- Carbon Sequestration: ₱5,307
- Reduced Fossil Fuel Use: ₱16,350
- Reduced Water Pumping: ₱3,609
The report argues for embedding these payments into national climate strategies and carbon credit schemes.
A Call for Systemic Change
The study concludes that SRI is a “systems-level intervention” that integrates land tenure reform, women’s participation, and indigenous knowledge. It offers a viable pathway to a “sovereign, climate-resilient, and equitable food future.”
“SRI enables the Philippines to double rice productivity, reduce emissions, and restore ecological integrity without expanding a single hectare of irrigated land,” the authors state. “The Davao SRI trials show what is possible when science, policy, and farmer motivation align.”
With the right policy support, training, and financial incentives, this agroecological method could transform the Philippines from a rice-importing nation into a self-sufficient, climate-smart agricultural leader.#
