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Concept
Henri de Laulanie
Summary
Henri de Laulanié from Poitou, France, joined the Society of Jesus and spent most of his Jesuit life working with rice farmers in Madagascar. He used his training from "Institut National Agronomique" in Paris, from which he graduated in 1938. to develop in Madagascar the rice cultivation method known as the System of Rice Intensification (SRI).
Henri de Laulanié de Sainte-Croix was trained as an agronomist at Institut National Agronomique in Paris and gained knowledge of the physiology of rice tillering from a document capitalising on rice yield components analysis published by the French NGO Groupe de Recherches et d'Echanges Technologiques (GRET), which mentioned the work of the Japanese scientist Katayama on the rice phyllochrones published in 1951.
He arrived on Madagascar in 1961, at the age of 41. As rice was the staple food of the Malagasy people, he set about trying to help farmers increase their rice production. He continued his efforts at improving rice cultivation until his death 34 years later at the age of 75. System of Rice Intensification (SRI) was first developed in 1983, but was not fully tested until some years later. His discovery of SRI was publicized in his book Rice in Madagascar.
SRI is based on four principles:
- Establishing plants early and quickly, to favor healthy and vigorous root and vegetative plant growth.
- Maintaining low plant density to allow optimal development of each individual plant and to minimize competitions between plants for nutrients, water and sunlight.
- Enriching soils with organic matter to improve nutrient and water holding capacity, increase microbial life in the soil, and to provide a good substrate for roots to grow and develop,
- Reducing and controlling the application of water, providing only as much water as necessary for optimal plant development and to favor aerobic soil conditions. The System of Rice Intensification was later adopted by over 55 countries around the world and has improved food security for millions of small holder rice farmers.
Official source
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