Planting rice seedlings in a bundle is the conventional style of farming in rural area of Cambodia. When farmers are told for the first time that SRI methods require planting only one or two seedlings at a time to gain more crop yields, they can’t help feeling afraid to change their practice from the familiar way to the new one. To ease their anxiety, the trainer of SRI exerts creativity in the workshops. One of the unique strategies employs paper and instant noodles. Can you imagine how to use these items?

To begin with, five sheets of paper on which numbers from one to five are written respectively, are put on the ground evenly spaced apart. The same number of persons as the numbers are requested to stand right on the sheets. The person standing on the sheet “one” can occupy the space alone freely while five people on the sheet “five” struggle to remain at their place squeezing one another with uncomfortable faces. The trainer asks, “can you feel the wind?” “can you breathe easily?” Then the trainer distributes one pack of instant noodle to each group and asks, “Have you eaten enough?”

Obviously, those on “one” and “two” reply that they enjoy breezy air and fill their stomachs in contrast to the other groups. Instant noodles represent nutrients and fertilizer necessary for the growth of seedlings.

In the end, the trainer says, “the seedlings will feel as you’ve felt, won’t they?” At the moment, the faces of the participants brighten up. They understand the SRI methods by their own bodies. For introducing new agricultural methods, theories perceived by brain alone do not work well; the project actively resorts to various senses of our body.