Impacts of Rice Intensification System on Two C. D. Blocks of Barddhaman District, West Bengal

Rice is an important cereal crop of West Bengal and in many of the Indian states. There is a compelling need to increase rice productivity vertically in West Bengal due to less availability of land and greater dependency of the population on the productivity of the land. For this reason, the economic and ecological potentiality of the system of rice intensification (SRI) has been evaluated by several researchers. In the present study, Monteswar and Memari-II C. D. blocks of Barddhaman district, West Bengal have been selected to analyse the impacts of SRI on economic and ecological aspects of rice-growing. Results show that benefit-cost (B : C) ratio in SRI practice is significantly higher than the conventional method of rice cultivation. Under SRI B : C ratio varies from 5.06 : 1 to 3 : 1, but in the conventional method it varies from 2.18 : 1 to 1.78 : 1. Therefore, SRI farmers are experiencing multiple benefits in terms of both economics and ecology.