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Local Seed for LocalNeed

More than half a million smallholder fish farmers in South Asiastand to benefit fromimproved supplies of high-quality fingerlings cultured in nearby rice paddies

Fish and rice are the bread and butter of monsoon Asia, which stretches from Japan to Pakistan. Archeological evidence suggests that Asian farmers have cultivated these two essential food crops in the same paddies for at least 2 millennia. In the early 1990s, the WorldFishCenter began researching with partners in Bangladeshand Vietnamhow to make rice-fish systems as productive and profitable as possible for smallholder farm families.

Flooded rice paddies are nutrient-rich habitats for fish, which consume the weeds and algae that transmitrice diseases, harborrice pests and compete with rice for nutrients. Fish also eat the larvae of mosquitoes and other insects and fertilize paddies with their wastes. Farmers that culture fish with rice typically apply less fertilizer and no pesticides, thereby reducing their rice production costs by 10% while maintaining yields or improving them by as much as 10% — and limiting environmental pollution. The average farm income of participants in WorldFish-led rice-fish researchrose by 16% in 3 years, buoyed by sales of fish not needed for home consumption.

Rice-fish culture has spread quickly in Bangladesh, partly through farmer-to-farmer extension. It and other forms of smallholder aquaculture could spread even more quickly if farmers had better access to fry and fingerlings with which to seed their paddies and ponds. Because hatcheries and nurseries are few and far between, the crucial inputs they supply are often shipped over long distances, arriving in poor condition and inadequate numbers. The solution to this persistent constraint is to decentralize fish seed production by training smallholder rice farmers to culture fry and fingerlings of tilapia and common carp in their irrigated paddies.

“An important benefit of producing fish seed in rice paddies is that it allows a focus on poor households, rather than on the local entrepreneurs who typically dominate the hatchery business,” says Benoy Kumar Barman, the leader of a WorldFish-supported project that aims to decentralize feed seed production. “Entry costs are low, and most rice farmers can participate, including women from poor households.”

Culturing fish with rice requires no major changes in rice management other than allowingthe integrated pest management provided by fish to replace pesticides. Farmers accommodate fish by digging a ditch along one bund for use as a refuge when the water level is low.

In a pilot studyof fish seed production in rice paddies at two locations in Rangpur District of northwestern Bangladesh, most farmers applied lime to the ditch before filling the paddy with water in preparation for transplanting seedlings of boro rice — the irrigated dry-season crop of improved, high-yielding rice cultivars. They stocked the broodfish a few days later and applied mineral fertilizer. Farmers first observed tilapia fry in their plots 3-4 weeks later. Most applied rice bran as supplementary feed for the broodfish, fry and fingerlings. Farmers harvested the fish seed from mid-April to July. Two thirds of their fingerling sales were to neighboring pond owners, with most of the rest going to fingerling traders. The average income from fish culture per plot (which averaged 0.13 hectares) was 1,425 taka (US$21):39% in cash, 26% as restocked fingerlings in the farmers’ own systems and 35% as fish directly consumed. This additional income approached the average rice income of 1,748 taka per plot, effectively doubling farmers’ earnings.

“The introduction of tilapia for seed production changes farmers’ attitudes,” observes Barman. “They move away from seeking only to meet subsistence needs toward generating cash income.”

With funding from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development through its Research Into Use Programme (RIUP), WorldFish is drawing on its long experience in rice-fish and other forms of aquaculture in Bangladesh to provide guidance and technical backstopping to the Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service of Bangladesh, which is leading the project. Partners include the Department of Fisheries, BangladeshAgriculturalUniversity, Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science of Tribhuvan University, University of Stirling in the United Kingdom, and several nongovernmental organizations.

The project directly targets 18,000 poor rice farmers in Bangladesh,while pilot projects in Nepal and the Indian state of West Bengal will each benefit a further 500 farmers. Other direct beneficiaries are 3,000 households producing carp fingerlings in seasonal pond nurseries, 3,000 fingerling traders and 200 satellite broodfish producers. An additional 36,000 households are anticipated to benefit as secondary adoptors, and 600,000 households that culture food fish in ponds or rice paddies will enjoy improved supplies of large, locally produced fingerlings.

A project mandate is that at least half of direct beneficiaries be women. Among 20 farmers selected in Goreya South Para, a village in the northwestern Bangladeshi district of Gaibandha, 12 are women, including the leader, Rashida Begum.

“I enjoy sharing useful knowledge,” says the 45-year-old mother of two. “I am confident that I can do the job.”

A visit to one of the satellite broodfish producers, Rafiqul Islam, finds his daughter, 15-year-old Rosi, in charge of the fish in her father’s absence. The project provided Islam with two bamboo cages and a number of small broodfish, which Rosi feeds twice a day with rice bran and mustard oil cake squeezed into a ball.

The anticipated impact of decentralized fish seed production will be a 17% increase in fish consumption and $29 in additionalincome for rice-farming householdsthat are able to produce at least 2,500 fingerlings annually. Reduced pesticide use will benefit the environment. Participation in the project will strengthen civil society organizations, and gifts of fingerlings to relatives and neighbors will enhance social bonding. The large scale of the project will permit the production of 27 million high-quality fingerlings, generating rural economic activity worth $63 million.