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Rice-Fish Farming System: What Is The Issue?

Rice-fish farming is an agricultural system that grows rice and raises fish in the same flooded paddies. It offers environmental, economic, and social advantages over rice monoculture. The system reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 34.6% by increasing soil oxygen levels. It also improves soil fertility, lowers costs, and increases farmer incomes. While India has 20 million hectares suitable for rice-fish, it currently uses this system on just 0.23 million hectares. Expanded adoption could boost productivity and staple food production.

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Tanujit Saha
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43 views3 pages

Rice-Fish Farming System: What Is The Issue?

Rice-fish farming is an agricultural system that grows rice and raises fish in the same flooded paddies. It offers environmental, economic, and social advantages over rice monoculture. The system reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 34.6% by increasing soil oxygen levels. It also improves soil fertility, lowers costs, and increases farmer incomes. While India has 20 million hectares suitable for rice-fish, it currently uses this system on just 0.23 million hectares. Expanded adoption could boost productivity and staple food production.

Uploaded by

Tanujit Saha
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Rice-fish Farming System

What is the issue?

Sustainable intensification of agricultural production systems is crucial to


address the ever-increasing pressure on food and the environment.
In this context, rice-fish farming constitutes a unique agro-landscape, and
here is an overview on that.

What are the concerns with rice farming?

Rice, an important food grain, roughly feeds 50% of the world population.
But, it has been identified as a major crop consuming vast chunks of
available water resources.
Also, paddy fields emit large amount of the greenhouse gases, the two major
GHGs being methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide.
Methane emission depends on anaerobic degradation of organic complexes
under submerged conditions where there is a lack of oxygen.
[These include plant residues, organic matter and organic fertilisers.]
A total of 10-20% of methane in the atmosphere comes from paddy fields.
This is significant as the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of methane is 25
times more than that of carbon dioxide.
The impact of rice cultivation on the environment due to this is a matter of
big concern.
Global climate change is thus being closely linked to agricultural production.
Thus, solutions need to be sought to improve the management of rice
production systems.

What is rice-fish farming?

It is the co-culture of rice and aquatic creatures with animal production (e.g.
fish, shellfish, crab, shrimp and ducks) in paddy rice systems.
This has been proposed as a technique to maximise the use of land and water
resources to provide both grain and animal protein.
It is no longer an agro-production practice but an agro-culture pattern.
Rice-fish farming constitutes a unique agro-landscape across the world,
especially in tropical and sub-subtropical Asia.
The method probably began with the beginning of rice cultivation itself in the
North-East India.
This is because the waterlogged rice fields create a natural habitat for fish.
What advantages does it offer?

Environment - Rice-fish cultivation system is capable of lowering the


emission of methane and other GHGs.
Aquatic creatures especially bottom feeders (crabs and carps) disturb the
soil layers by their movement or sometimes searching for food.
Thus, they influence the CH4 production processes.
Potentially, aquatic creatures increase diluted oxygen in field water and in
soil.
Eventually, this shifts anaerobic digestion to aerobic digestion and helps to
reduce CH4 emissions.
Methane emission from rice-fish cultivation system is 34.6% less than that
from a monoculture rice cultivation system.
Rice-fish farming is also beneficial to restore soil fertility and avoid soil
degradation, which is a major global environmental issue.
Its multi-ecological functions thus cover biodiversity, food security, soil
enrichment and emissions reduction.
Economy - The rice-fish system requires only a small amount of pesticide
and fertiliser as it is a low input system.
The adoption of this system has led to an increase in economic efficiency of
farmers.
In Bangladesh, the net income return from rice-fish culture was over 50%
greater than that from rice monoculture.
Rice yields from the rice-fish system were 10-26% higher, labour input
19-22% lower and material inputs were 7% lower.
Additionally, fish production increased net income.
Indonesian figures show that the rice-fish system yielded a 27% higher net
return with fish, as compared to a single crop of rice.
The method ties the aquaculture industry to the agricultural industry in a
social way, which is not possible in the case of monoculture.
It thus increases contacts among various stakeholders that provide or share
useful skills and technical knowledge.

How feasible is this in India?

The total area of land available for rice cultivation in India is 43.5 million
hectares (ha).
Out of this, an estimated 20 million ha is suitable for adoption of the rice-fish
system mainly in rain-fed medium lands, waterlogged lands etc.
However, only 0.23 million ha is currently under rice-fish culture.
[This low degree of adoption, exploitation and yield is primarily due to the
introduction of high yielding rice varieties (HYV).
The associated use of pesticides has really impeded the culture of rice-fish
farming.]
In India, rice-fish farming has especially a huge scope in the North-Eastern
region.

What is to be done?

India’s rich traditional primitive farming is as old as this dual-farming


culture, and fish and rice both are the staple food of India.
Achieving higher productivity from this underutilised high potential area is
an immediate need.
Basic research on the rice-fish ecosystem should be emphasised.
This includes research on basic techniques of rice-fish farming and
technology required for engineering intervention.
Support for initial investment should be taken up with farmer-friendly
policies, easy loan schemes etc.

Source: DownToEarth

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