A response to doubts raised by Prof. Yuan on Indian farmer's record paddy yield through SRI method in Bihar

There is no scientific basis for rejecting these record yields in Bihar as a ‘hoax,’ because there is considerable evidence available that confirms the reported yields. Saying that the Indian government could not confirm the yield *after* the harvest is obviously correct, but it is a mistaken assertion. What Indian officials did was to review the documentation on methods used for ascertaining the reported yield, and once these methods were confirmed as standard and sufficient, they could reasonably affirm the results.

I appreciate that Prof. Yuan was one of the earliest supporters and first proponents of SRI methods in his own country. In 2000 he got a copy of one of my first papers on SRI through an associate of his who was working with RiceTech, a company in Texas. Prof. Yuan tried out SRI methods for himself, using his own high-yielding hybrid varieties, and in December 2000, he sent me a fax saying that he was trying out the methods and found them encouraging. He invited me to visit his research station in Sanya, part of the China Hybrid Rice Research and Development Centre (CNHRRDC) which he directs. I was able to visit in April 2001, accompanied by Prof. Robert Randriamiharisoa, director of research for the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar. We were both in China to attend a workshop on ‘water-saving rice production methods’ that was organized by Wageningen University and held at Nanjing Agricultural University. Prof. Robert had supervised the most detailed scientific evaluations of SRI up to that point, so he could address many agronomic issues better than I could.

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