https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/01/30/689685891/nepalese-rice-farmers-boost-yields-by-sowing-fewer-plants-and-cutting-water
Bharati is practicing SRI, or the system of rice intensification. The technique, which was developed in Madagascar in the 1980s by French Jesuit priest Henri de LaulaniƩ, involves several practices that seem counterintuitive to increasing production, such as planting fewer seedlings, planting them younger and using less water. But small farmers across the world have reported massive gains in yield that they attribute to the process.