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Fifty-five-year-old Boureima Sanogo has been growing rice since the age of fifteen. Using traditional cultivation methods, the highest yield he can achieve from a one-hectare area is four tonnes.

However, since the introduction of a new cultivation method called System of Intensive Rice Cultivation (SRI), an improved water management system coupled with the use of drought-tolerant seed varieties, he can not only cultivate twice a year, but also simply double his yield from the same area.

Sanogo now produces around 14 tonnes a year. This polygamous head of household, father of 14 children, owns around two hectares of land in the rice fields located in San, some 450 km east of Bamako, the Malian capital.

Before the adoption of SRI, his maximum income barely exceeded 500,000 FCFA (1,000 USD).

But when you add the off-season production, he now makes close to 2.5 million FCFA, or about (5000 USD) the commercial value of his 14 tons. A ton of rice now sells in Mali for 175,000 FCFA (350 UDS).

In a country where the majority of the population, especially in rural areas, live on around 2 dollars a day, its earnings represent an important source of income, well above the country's average per capita income.

When we met him on the rice-growing plains of San, Sanogo looked relaxed and happy with this year's off-season production.

"Next week, we start harvesting. That will mark the end of the off-season. After that, we'll start preparing the soil for rainy season production," explains Sanogo.

Experts place the off-season between December and May, while the regular rainy season generally begins in June and ends in October. Mali often records the bulk of its rainfall during the latter period.

SRI works best with irrigated rice cultivation

Travelling across the vast expanses of land in Mali can be particularly challenging in the sweltering heat that prevails at such times.

With unpredictable rainfall, drought and unstable weather conditions due in part to climate change, experts say farming can be extremely difficult.

With degraded soils and inadequate agricultural inputs, the situation is becoming even more desperate for small-scale producers in particular.

However, thanks to a smarter, water-efficient agro-ecological method known as SRI, around 400 hectares of irrigated rice fields were sown between December 2017 and May 2018, in San, in this part of Mali.

Climate change is a reality. But here in San, our rice fields are watered by an irrigation system. This makes off-season rice-growing possible," explains Sanogo.

Around 5,000 rice growers have formed an association in San. They have named it the Association des producteurs de riz des plaines aménagées de l'Ouest San (APPASO). Thanks to their collective efforts, a canal irrigation system enables farmers to have water in their perimeters, enabling them to grow rice all year round and better manage periods of drought linked to climate change in Mali.

Without this system, it's impossible to cope with drought, and to grow rice in the off-season," explains Ali Sanogo, APPASO Technical Advisor.

SRI has many advantages over our traditional cultivation methods. It requires less seed and yields are higher with this system, which uses less water in the off-season," says Asseye Togola, another SRI user.

Scaling up SRI to achieve rice self-sufficiency in Mali

Experts say that if West African countries are to achieve self-sufficiency in rice, many producers will have to adopt this method of cultivation.

How many farmers need to adopt this technique before reaching the tipping point where SRI becomes the most widely practiced rice-growing standard in West Africa?

According to Dr. Erika Styger of Cornell University in the USA, and Dr. Gaoussou Traoré, former coordinator of CNS-Riz, a recent book on the use of SRI in West Africa, a utilization rate of 33% of the region's rice growers, i.e. some 1.5 million producers and around 2.43 million ha, would be the indispensable target to achieve rice self-sufficiency in the region.

''If 100% of West African rice farmers had used SRI in 2017, rice self-sufficiency would already have been achieved with a surplus of 5%'' stress the two researchers, who add that ''replacing massive rice imports with local rice would have saved $4.16 billion in foreign currency in 2017 alone''.

Some recommendations for SRI expansion

• Developing national and regional coordination
• Let farmers and farmers' organizations take the lead.
• Refining and ensuring the quality of technical training
• Focus on adaptation and innovation
• Strengthen and improve IRS monitoring systems
• Develop a communication platform to promote the use of SRI

Read also:

SIR boosts farmers' incomes in Mali
"West African rice must be able to compete with imported rice", Dr. Abdoulaye Touré