Floating the idea of fish

Seasonal floodwaters rocked the cradle of civilisation encouraging men, or perhaps women, to make their first attempts at agricultural development. Countless seasons later, we are still attempting to make the most of natural floodwater.

Credit: Mark Prein, ICLARM

The people of the delta regions of Bangladesh and Vietnam made use of their annual floods by growing the tall-stemmed, 'deep water' rice that can keep its head above the rising water. The land was left fallow in the dry winter season. With the introduction of better irrigation and much higher-yielding, short-stemmed rice varieties, farmers switched growing seasons. Much of the land is now left fallow under the floodwaters. But is there any reason why better use should not be made of this otherwise wasted natural resource? Raising fish would seem to be an obvious idea except for the fact that fish, unless fenced in or caged, can swim from flooded field to flooded field regardless of who owns the land beneath. The only practical solution is for the local community to raise fish collectively. Putting aside for the moment the question of whether people are willing to work together, is it technically feasible? Several institutions, ICLARM-The World Fish Center, the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI), Proshika (an NGO in Bangladesh), Research Institute for Aquaculture No. 1, Research Institute for Aquaculture No 2 and others* set out to discover whether growing fish would harm subsequent rice production, or vice versa.

Three years of research and the answers are very encouraging. There are two options for farmers, depending on the expected depth of floodwater. They can grow high yielding rice followed by fish or they can grow high yielding rice followed by fish and deep water rice. Fish yields of 1.5 t/ha can be achieved in Bangladesh although in South Vietnam, where the duration of flood is shorter, yields are nearer 400 kg/ha. Careful monitoring has revealed no ill effects on yields of rice. Indeed, the cost of rice production is actually reduced by about 10%, mainly because land preparation and weeding are easier, and because diseases and insect infestation are less of a problem. And there are no detrimental effects on wild fish stocks. Trials have shown that farmers are catching about 100kg of wild fish in both the experimental sites and the control sites. Introduced fish species are chosen to suit local taste, particularly silver barb, common carp and mirror carp and there is no difficulty in achieving marketable size.

Technical solutions are relatively straightforward but how would the idea of community based fisheries management appeal to the people involved? Again ICLARM and others (with funding from the UK Government's Department for International Development) set out to discover how such an approach might be managed.

The challenge was for the interested parties to create a system that was considered acceptable by all. There are three principal groups: landowners who want to take part in the scheme; landowners who do not, and landless fishers who had previously fished the floodwaters for wild fish. Each would get a certain percentage of the fish catch depending on their input. One can imagine that a compromise is not easy to achieve but very thorough consultation in the early stages paid off. In Bangladesh, all but one or two of the groups worked well. In those instances where there were problems, these arose because some felt they had not received a fair share of the benefits. In a few other cases there were problems with landless fishers coming into the community from outside the area, hoping to take advantage of the better fishing. In South Vietnam, farmers are generally more cautious but, after three seasons demonstrating the good returns that rice-fish culture brings, they are now convinced.

What has proved most encouraging for the researchers involved is that in both Bangladesh and Vietnam, government and NGOs have become very enthusiastic about community based fisheries management and are planning to introduce the idea to other districts. Even more gratifying is that some farmers in Bangladesh, outside the trial areas but hearing about them, have formed their own groups which, in many cases, seem to be doing even better. The researchers now want to see how the adoption process evolves and what modification to the technology may be needed to suit farmers not only in Bangladesh and Vietnam but also in the Indian States of West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where there is similar interest in the idea. Community collaboration must have been an essential element for early Man to take those first steps towards developing agriculture. Even in today's sophisticated civilisation, it still is.

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