Assessing the acceptance of the system of rice intensification among farmers in rainfed lowland rice region of Cambodia

We conducted interview survey with rainfed rice farmers at a commune in southern Cambodia to identify the determinants of their adoption or rejection of the system of rice intensification (SRI) for the wet season of 2014. SRI was first introduced to the commune in 2003 and spread among the farmers, but the number of farmers discontinuing the practice has increased since 2011. We classified the farmers into four categories: those who practice SRI in all their fields (OA), farmers who practice SRI in some of their fields (PA), farmers who had practiced SRI but discontinued it (DA), and farmers who have never practiced SRI (CR). Farmers in different categories of SRI adoption differed in their access to water sources. The majority of OA and PA farmers had supplementary water sources, which was, however, available to less than 50% of DA farmers and only 15% of CR farmers. Both PA and DA farmers mentioned water shortage as the reason for not practicing SRI in some (PA) or any (DA) of their fields, but they differed in the number of rice fields. All the PA farmers had more than one field, whereas a majority of DA farmers had only one field. Labor shortage and difficulty of planting in a regular grid pattern were also mentioned as the reason for not practicing SRI by the farmers, particularly by DA farmers. Water constraint and difficulties in transplanting were thus identified as two major determinants of SRI adoption/rejection at the study site.