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There are manifold interactions between
fisheries and agriculture through the common use of
land and water resources and concurrent production
activities to support rural village communities and
supply urban areas with the needed quantity and
variety of food. Such interactions extend to the
institutional sphere, as fisheries and agriculture
often fall within one government ministry. Improved
integration between the two sectors is therefore an
important means for enhancing fish production and
food security.
The overall objective of integrating fisheries
and agriculture is to maximize the synergistic and
minimize the antagonistic interactions between the
two sectors. There is growing recognition over the
opportunities and benefits of integrating fisheries
and aquaculture into agricultural development
efforts, since there are very significant
synergistic interactions between agriculture and
fish production practices, which are mainly derived
from the recycling of nutrients arising in the
course of agricultural, livestock and fish
production processes, from integrated pest
management IPM and from the optimal use of water
resources. The most direct antagonistic
interactions between agriculture and fisheries
occur where these two sectors compete for land and
water, and where measures aimed at higher
agricultural production can alter fish habitats and
fish stocks.
Human resource development and institutional
strengthening are widely held to be the principal
requirements for improving integration at the level
of individual farms and communities, in river basin
and coastal area management and at the level of
sectoral and macroeconomic policies. At the farm
level, attention needs to focus first on resource
use efficiency and the economic incentives that
influence farmers when they decide on cropping
patterns and the use of water, fertilizer,
pesticides and other inputs. Next, the emphasis
should be on farmers' knowledge of available
production and pest management options as well as
on their ability to apply these. Agriculture and
aquaculture offer a large variety of cropping
patterns under different climatic and soil
conditions. If they have the right skills, together
with access to the necessary inputs, farmers will
adopt the farming or aquaculture system that is
most suitable and economically advantageous for
their specific situation. Extension and training
are crucial for informed decision-making, and
physical infrastructure, efficient input markets
and credit facilities are indispensable for the
optimal development and integration of farming and
aquaculture systems.
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reference sources
Fernando, C.H. and M. Halwart. 2000.
Possibilities for the integration of fish
farming into irrigation systems. Fisheries
Management and Ecology, Vol. 7, p.
45-54.
FAO 2000. Proposal for an African
Network on Integrated Irrigation and
Aquaculture. Proceedings of a Workshop
held in Accra, Ghana, 20-21 September
1999. FAO Regional Office for Africa,
Accra. 2000. 75p.
FAO, IIRR and ICLARM 2000. Integrated
Agriculture-Aquaculture: A Primer. FAO
Fisheries Technical Paper. FAO, Rome.
2000. 144p.
FAO 2000. Small ponds make a big
difference. Integrating fish with crop and
livestock farming. Rome, FAO. 2000.
30p.
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