The first organization to introduce the System Rice Intensification into Laos was Oxfam Australia, a non-governmental organization (NGO), which conducted the first SRI trials during the rainy season of 2001. The Lao National Agriculture Research Center (NARC), under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), however, conducted its own trials during the dry season of 2001/02 and the rainy season 2002 and concluded that “the likelihood of disseminating SRI throughout Laos is extremely slim.” As a result of this verdict, the spread of SRI within Laos was, thereafter, limited to a very small amount of progress attributable to the support of several international NGOs.
