CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
“There is rice in the fields, fish in the water.” This sentence inscribed on a stone tablet from the Sukhothai period - a Thai kingdom that flourished 700 years ago - depicts a scene that must have been as idyllic then as it continues to be now. Having rice in the fields and fish in the water is an epitome of abundance and sufficiency. No other combination would seem to be so fundamental and nutritionally complete in the Asian context. As such, few other plant and animal combinations seem to be more appropriate to culture together to improve nutrition and alleviate poverty. Fish culture in rice fields provides the means for “the contemporaneous production of grain and animal protein on the same piece of land”(Schuster 1955), and in this environmentally conscious age, few other food production systems seem more ecologically sound and efficient.
In the strictest sense rice- fish farming means the growing of rice and fish together in the same field at the same time. However, it also includes the growing of rice and fish serially, one after another within the same field or the growing of rice and fish simultaneously, side by side in separate compartments, using the same water. “Fish” in these contexts include both fin-fish and other aquatic animals living in rice fields such as freshwater prawn, marine shrimp, crayfish, crab, turtle, bivalve, frog, and even insects. Rice-fish farming is practiced in many countries in the world, particularly in Asia. While each country has evolved its own unique approach and procedures, there are also similarities, common practices and common problems.
Global recognition of, and interest in, the potential of rice-fish farming in helping combat malnutrition and poverty has been well known for a long time. The FAO Rice Committee recognized the importance of fish culture in rice fields back in 1948 (FAO 1957). Subsequently it has been the subject of discussions by the Indo-Pacific Fisheries Council (IPFC), the General Fisheries Council of the Mediterranean (GFCM), the FAO Rice Meeting and the International Rice Commission (IRC). IPFC and the IRC formulated a joint program for promoting investigations to evaluate the utility of fish culture in rice fields. However, international interest gradually waned over the years perhaps due to the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides in the early attempts to boost rice production. It was not until the late 1980s when global interest in rice-fish farming was renewed. Rice-fish farming was identified as a project of the International Rice Research Institute’s (IRRI) and Asian Rice Farming Systems Network (ARFSN). This project, led by the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM), the present World Fish Center, was implemented as a collaborative effort involving many institutions throughout Asia. At the same time, the International Development and Research Center (IDRC) of Canada co-sponsored China’s National Rice-Fish Farming Systems Symposium in Wuxi. The papers presented at the symposium were translated into English and published by IDRC (MacKay 1995). Much of the information on China in this work was obtained from that publication. Over the last 15 years, the spread of rice-fish farming has been uneven and campaigns to promote the practice have often been discontinued. There are a multitude of reasons for this, including inappropriate extension campaigns, cheap and readily available pesticides, and lack of credit facilities.
| Review project details | Comments |
|---|---|
| Number of Pages | 125 pages |
| Chapter one (1) | Yes Introduction |
| Chapter two (2) | Yes Literature review |
| Chapter three (3) | Yes methodology |
| Chapter four (4) | Yes Data analysis |
| Chapter five (5) | Yes Summary,discussion & recommendations |
| Reference | Yes Reference |
| Questionnaire | Yes Questionnaire |
| Appendix | yes Appendix |
| Chapter summary | yes 1 to 5 chapters |
| Available document | PDF and MS-word format |
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