Bihar Department of Agriculture (DOA) has included machine transplanting under non puddled condition (MTNPR) and direct dry seeded rice (DSR) in the road map of Kharif Production Activities 2014. This is largely due to CSISA’s efforts to promote the rice establishment methods (MTNPR, DSR and community nursery) and get these technologies mainstreamed through the state agriculture department in Bihar.

CSISA has been engaging and participating in a series of planning meetings with DOA for scaling-up of these technologies in the state. At a meeting organized by Bihar Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute (BAMETI) and chaired by Vivek Kumar Singh, Principal Secretary, Agriculture, CSISA presented data on success of these technologies in different clusters for Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh and expressed the need to expand these technologies.

Labor scarcity during rice transplanting remains a serious challenge in Bihar and has started affecting the state’s existing labour-intensive System Rice Intensification (SRI) program. Better bet agronomic practices, like SRI, can be expanded more efficiently by machine transplanting rather than manual transplanting.

“This is an important step directed at improvement in cropping system productivity and mechanization of rice cultivation in Bihar. If the extension process capitalizes on this, it will lead to a long-term gain for sustainable intensification (SI) of the cropping system in Bihar”, said R.K. Malik, the leader of CSISA’s Objective 1 and the Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh hub manager.