For more than two decades, innovative fish-farming methods developed by WorldFish and its partners have given tens of thousands of impoverished families a means of producing fish locally to feed themselves and earn money.
In Bangladesh, the rural poor have used these technologies to convert at least a million ponds, ditches, seasonally flooded fields, and other bodies of water into productive “fish factories.” Some small-scale fish producers have boosted their household income four-fold. The government estimates that fish production through this approach now totals at least 750,000 tonnes a year.
When integrated into traditional farming systems, WorldFish’s aquaculture technologies can achieve impressive gains in agricultural productivity.Many rice farmers in Vietnam and other parts of Asia have boosted grain yields, lowered production costs, and earned bigger profits by growing fish in their rice paddies The approach also has environmental advantages because fish eat the weeds, thereby reducing the need for pesticides and herbicides.
An integrated aquaculture-agriculture (IAA) approach developed and tested in Malawi over the last two decades was shown to deliver big returns: 10% higher farm productivity, 50% greater efficiency, less nitrogen loss in soil, and more resilience during drought compared with conventional farms. The participating families earned 28% higher income and also enjoyed better nutrition, thanks to a regular supply of fresh fish. The boost in total farm productivity comes mainly from extensive recycling of organic farm wastes and nutrient-rich water from the fish ponds, which enables farmers to grow additional crops for local markets.
Analysis suggests that expanding implementation of IAA on just a fraction of all the land in sub-Saharan Africa suited for it could produce nearly 4 million extra tonnes of fish a year across the region.
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