| Naga
- The ICLARM Quarterly
Vol.
23, No. 2 (April - June 2000)
Editorial
Farming
Fish the Right Way
Aquaculture
has a poor image for many people and views on
its desirability are quite polarized. As an international
research center concerned with fish and other
living aquatic resources, *ICLARM has a unique
vantage point on this. Aquaculture research and
development is an important part of our research
program designed to improve food security and
the environment through scientific partnerships.
We recently released a brief note, Farming
Fish the Right Way, to explain why we see
aquaculture as having an important contribution
to make in improving the lives of poor people,
while also being positive for the environment.
Farming
fish the right way has several facets. It means
choosing the right species, the right farming
systems and the right adoption pathways, among
others. In all these choices the focus should
be on what is accessible to poor people and suited
to their conditions, while at the same time being
positive for the environment. If markets and profit
are the only parameters considered, the poorer
producers and consumers may not benefit, and the
environment is likely to suffer.
*ICLARM’s
approach to fish farming can be illustrated with
some examples:
One
is the development of low-cost, small-scale fish
farming techniques in rural Bangladesh, where suitable
species and ready markets for fish already exist
and where fish is the main source of protein and
nutrients for the people. Our studies in the early
1990s showed that standard extension channels tended
to reach the better off farmers who adopted fish
farming first – a typical outcome for any new agricultural
technology adoption. Our subsequent work with nongovernment
organizations (NGOs) demonstrated that the poor,
and especially women, could become successful adopters
if they were given help to access the technology.
The efforts of these NGOs are resulting in extending
fish farming to millions of rural people in Bangladesh
and significantly improving their nutritional and
economic status.
Another
example is from our efforts to find suitable species
to farm in the beautiful but remote islands of
the Pacific, where aquaculture species were not
yet available. Our choice was to focus on low-input,
high-value invertebrates such as giant clams,
sea cucumbers and pearl oysters. The village farmers
can only manage small enterprises and cannot import
feed. Filter feeding and autotrophic (self-feeding)
species such as those we chose seem to show the
greatest promise. They do not pollute the environment,
their natural stocks are under pressure from overexploitation
and they have a good market. Although they are
not being grown primarily for food, they provide
a good income for the small farmers to buy food
with. The farmers are also beginning to see the
necessity of protecting and adding to wild stocks.
A
fairly different approach is to improve the productivity
of popular low-cost species to keep fish within
reach of poorer people. The reduction in the availability
of fish due to overfishing has raised the price
of fish beyond the reach of the poor. The large
selective breeding program for the Nile tilapia,
a scientific partnership between African and Asian
countries and Norwegian and *ICLARM scientists,
is starting to yield on-farm tilapia productivity
improvements in Bangladesh, China, Indonesia,
the Philippines and Thailand. Ex ante impact
studies in the five biggest tilapia producing
countries have shown that the attendant reduction
in the price and increase in the availability
of fish will benefit all sections of tilapia producers
and all classes of consumers, except the highest
income groups.
*ICLARM
has also developed techniques to introduce fish
farming to poor and marginal crop farmers to raise
the productivity of their farming systems through
scientific integration of farm activities and
recycling of resources. Our success at the experimental
stage holds great potential for improving the
stability and security of such farming communities
if undertaken on a larger scale.
We
believe that aquaculture has a great potential
to provide food for the growing world population
and income for the rural poor, help replenish
wild stocks and be friendly to the environment,
if practiced scientifically and responsibly.
Meryl Williams and Rita Kapadia
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