The Role Of A Fish Pond In Optimizing Nutrient Flows In Integrated Agriculture Aquaculture Farming Systems

This publication contains background documents and papers presented at a workshop on integrated irrigation aquaculture (IIA), held in Mali in November 2003, as well as the findings of FAO expert missions on IIA in the West Africa region. The rationale for IIA development lies in its potential to increase productivity of scarce freshwater resources and to reduce pressure on natural resources, issues of particular important in the drought-prone countries of West Africa.

Integrated farming in Asia is either considered an eco-friendly good that should be preserved for environmental reasons or a poor practice that will soon be superseded by industrial aquaculture. This report finds that most livestock-fish integration is sound business conducted by entrepreneurs accessing urban markets where the price of fish is relatively low. It can be used as part of a strategy to reduce environmental impacts of intensive livestock production and to produce low-cost food. Farmers have proved adept at both developing their systems to meet their own needs and diversifying the role of ponds, fish and livestock within their complex livelihoods.

Integrated Fish Farming (IFF) is a sustainable-agriculture technology practiced widely in Asia and other regions of the world. This integrated technology can offer farmers economic improvements while lessening the adverse environmental impacts of farming. IFF systems typically involve a combination of fish polyculture, integration of agricultural production (livestock and/or crops) with aquaculture, and on-farm waste recycling. Drawing on research presented by experts from around the world at the International Workshop on Integrated Fish Farming, this book provides thorough, detailed and truly interdisciplinary coverage of one of the world's most important approaches to integrated farming systems. Integrated Fish Farming places IFF in a global context, reporting on case studies of successful IFF operations, experiments to enhance IFF performance, bioeconomic survey and modeling analyses, research on farm waste use and pond ecology, socioeconomic elements of IFF extension and adoption, and the bio-technical and economic aspects of adapting IFF to reservoirs, marshlands, rice paddies and marginal habitats.

This document is an edited and slightly revised version of a previously published integrated agriculture-aquaculture (IAA) technology information kit. It contains 38 contributions in seven sections, outlining the basic issues and characteristics of IAA systems and making generous use of pictorial drawings and visual representations.