Social and policy issues involved in adoption of integrated agriculture-aquaculture-livestock production systems in Bangladesh

Fish play an important role in the lives of the people of Bangladesh, providing nutrition, income, employment and foreign exchange earnings. Despite their importance, however, per capita fish consumption among low-income rural households is very low, being only 4.4 kg per annum. Factors, which include a decline in fish production from open waters on which rural populations depend, higher prices and the low purchasing power of rural households, have combined to create a growing class of malnourished families, with women and children particularly affected. Government and non-government organizations have in recent years undertaken research to study ways of optimizing food production from available water resources. This research has resulted in the development of techniques for practicing (ij integrated rice-fish farming, either concurrently or in rotation with rice in rainfed, irrigated and deepwater rice ecosystems, and (ii) integrated poultry-fish farming in homestead ponds. The integration of fish culture with rainfed and irrigated rice farming has resulted in fish production of up to 884 kg/ha, with 67% of these farms showing increased rice yields, as compared to farms without fish. The increase in farmers' incomes associated with the adoption of these farming practices was between 13% and 83%. The culture of fish in rotation with rice in a deepwater rice environment resulted in fish production as high as 6 t/ha. Raising poultry (broilers and layers) with fish culture in homestead ponds resulted in fish production levels of 5 to 6 t/ha, in addition to the poultry. Together the benefits of fish and poultry amounted to as much as $6,625/ha. In response to an increasing demand for shrimp in international markets, more farmers in the coastal areas of Bangladesh are rotating shrimp culture with rice farming, and the total area used for shrimp culture expanded from 20,000 ha in 1980 to 108,280 ha in 1990. Despite the technical feasibility of integrated rice-fish farming and poultry-fish farming, farmers have been very slow to adopt these farming practices. This paper describes in detail the economic and social constraints, and the policy issues that need to be addressed in order to popularize the adoption of integrated farming practices.