Technology Readiness for the System of Rice Intensification (SRI)

A system of rice intensification (SRI) was conceptualised as a system of formulated principles for producing rice rather than a technical practices of technology. However, with the advancement of technology, numerous studies have focused on the adoption issues of rice intensification technology (RIT) for SRI. Although it is important to questions what motivate, and what inhibit farmers from adopting RIT, there were few studies had actually addressed these questions from the perspective of technology readiness. This article aims to explain how the benefits and barriers in SRI influence the readiness of RIT, prior to its adoption. As a result, a framework was proposed under the domain of technology readiness to explain how the readiness of RIT could be affected by both motivators and inhibitors in SRI. It can be used to characterise and examine the extent to which motivators or inhibitors of RIT existed in the process and influenced the advancement of SRI. This implicates the researchers in SRI would be able to screen and identify technological problems relating to adoption issues of RIT for SRI, and taking relevant actions to contend with the identified problems. This article has promoted SRI as not being anti-technology, which means with the right management of technology, RIT can be used to achieve the principles of SRI for better water management, seedling, and transplanting.