Continuing on with the integrated ecosystem approach, rice paddys aquaculture is a traditional practice in countries like China and Bangladesh where the fish are farmed amongst rice in the conventional rice padies.
While many aquaculture projects are focused on setting up new offshore facilites, implementing such practice has it’s merits in developing and poorer countries. The cost of new infrastructure associated with off shore aquaculture may be difficult to sustain in such countriees and using the already available rice paddys may be an alternative.
Take for example Indonesia, which has an estimated 7-8 million ha of rice paddys. Assuming just 25% of these paddys were used for farming of the common carp. At a density of 4500 fish/ha capable of yielding 1.044T of fish per ha over the 75 day required growing period, this would equate to a yield of 8-9 million Tonne of fish per year…..definately a step in the right direction.
Tags: developing country, rice paddie
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Great suggestion. Rice paddie are normally flooded with fresh water to the depth of about 20 centimetres and subsequently drained in a few months time. That means rice paddie can only grow relatively small fresh water fish and the type of fish needed is those that can grow fast to get a better yield during that timeframe.
The fish grown from rice paddie may not be the premium fish interested by venture capitalists or commercial aquaculture operators however these fish may be used as live feed.
Both tropical Queensland and the Ord River region of WA is conducting rice trial at the moment. Perhaps we can look for a potential integration of commercial rice production and the supply of live feed.
One problem is that farmers are using insectiside and chemical fertiliser in the paddy field. These might have unwanted effect on the fish.
Another issue is security. Especially so in developing countries, it is difficult to ensure security in the fish farms, especially if it is implemented on the open field. People might steal the fish… and also there are some fish predators such as snakes, birds etc, which is quite difficult to tackle on an open paddy field.