The growth in rice production in Asia fell from 2.6% between 1966 and 1990 to 1.4% during the 1990s, mainly due to a deceleration in yield growth in the most intensively irrigated environments, where farm-level yields had already reached about 6.0 t ha-1. At this threshold of yields, farmers required more groundbreaking technology to elevate yields in highly productive environments. Inspired by the success of the 'Chinese miracle', policy makers and research managers in tropical Asia considered hybrid rice, an innovative technology, as an option to sustain growth in rice production. Rigorous research efforts over the past decade have led to the release of a few promising rice hybrids in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and the Philippines. This paper aims to assess the prospects for replicating the Chinese miracle of hybrid rice success in other Asian countries, where political systems and other socioeconomic conditions differ from those in China. The authors evaluated farmers' experiences with hybrid rice in India, Bangladesh and Vietnam. The analysis indicates that the particular political system and other socioeconomic factors, and not the inherent economic superiority of this technology, were the driving forces behind the success of Chinese hybrid rice. Thus in other Asian countries, where these factors are not evident and where market forces operate freely (apart from Vietnam), it is unlikely that the success of Chinese hybrid rice will be replicated in toto. Although hybrid rice has a yield gain of about 15-20% over the existing high-yielding modern varieties outside China, it is not attractive to farmers because of higher input costs and lower market prices due to its inferior grain quality. Thus currently available rice hybrids are unlikely to find potential demand in the targeted environments (irrigated rice systems) in the tropics. Hybrid rice would be successful on farms outside China if quality and seed production practices were to be improved and if there was proper deployment planning based on a microlevel analysis of the socioeconomic factors likely to affect its adoption.

The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) was initiated in Bangladesh in 1999-2000 when the government’s Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) and CARE-Bangladesh introduced SRI to a few groups of farmers in Kishoregonj. The average SRI yields in that first Boro season were 6.5-7.5 tonne per ha, which was around 20% higher than farmer practice. The SRI movement started in 2000 after Prof. Norman Uphoff visited Dhaka and spoke on the benefits of SRI to representatives of agricultural-related organisations and NGOs in the BRAC Head Office. The objectives of SRI NNB are to enhance crop intensification, production, and income for the farmers. The crop intensification initiative of SRI NNB followed the farmer participatory action (PAR) research approach for involving the farmers in undertaking field experiments, observation, analysis, and adoption processes to increase farm productivity and income. Though SRI practice was initiated about two decades ago in Bangladesh, it didn’t expand much throughout the country. The farmer to- farmer extension took place in localized proximity. Institutional management support and resource allocation are considered to be inevitable to expand the benefit of SRI among the farmers. It is expected that farmers might exercise the SRI principles in other crops as well. The recent emerging impact of climate change is to be addressed together with SRI practice and appropriate climate smart technologies in Bangladesh to improve food security of the poor and marginal farmers.