0 - WorldFish Center
0 - WorldFish Center
0 - WorldFish Center
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natural resource systems identify where<br />
water is found in sufficient supply for<br />
aquaculture. RRA data together with other<br />
maps from government (e.g., Ministry of<br />
Agriculture, Census Bureau) and develop-<br />
ment agencies (e.g., Food and Agriculture<br />
Organization) serve as a basis for target-<br />
ing the most important systems for de-<br />
velopment of IAA farming systems.<br />
Target of farm households. Secondary<br />
data sources and, where necessary, infor-<br />
mal surveys, provide the information needed<br />
to characterize smallholder farm house-<br />
holds. Analysis of a range of household<br />
characteristics originating from census or<br />
government statistics bureaus or from<br />
surveys conducted by other organizations<br />
identify target households. Characteristics<br />
include capital, use of external inputs, access<br />
to markets and cultural parameters such<br />
as tribal customs and issues surrounding<br />
the conservatism of new entrants. This<br />
"typology" work permits differentiation<br />
within smallholder farm households. These<br />
characteristics will be used in extrapola-<br />
tions of the possible outputs and benefits,<br />
given their adoption of integrated<br />
aquaculture systems.<br />
Stage 3 - Formulate Development<br />
options<br />
Screening of technology options.<br />
Secondary data on aquaculture technol-<br />
ogy available worldwide are screened for<br />
possible application to smallholder farm-<br />
ers in Ghana. Feasibility analysis screens<br />
for technical (water and land type), eco-<br />
nomic (capital, inputs and markets) and<br />
cultural parameters (tribal customs, new<br />
entrants' conservatism). An array of tech-<br />
nology options for small pond manage-<br />
ment that optimize aquaculture integra-<br />
tion within a given farming system is<br />
identified.<br />
Integratedagriculture-aquaculture system<br />
design. System design draws on both on-<br />
farm and on-station research work. RRAs<br />
and more intense farmer-participatory<br />
research develop bioresource flow mod-<br />
els for future IAA farming systems. All natural<br />
resource systems capable of holding wa-<br />
ter for aquaculture, including swamp<br />
ricefields, are considered for integration.<br />
Experiments at IAB's Alzosombo Research<br />
Station estimate the natural (baseline) pro-<br />
ductivity of selected water resource sys-<br />
tems. Further experiments evaluate the ben-<br />
efits of additional nutrient inputs or man-<br />
agement measures on fish productivity.<br />
Stage 4 - Project Development<br />
Impacts<br />
Bioeconomic modelling. Based on the<br />
data and information gained, hypotheti-<br />
cal bioeconomic models are constructed<br />
for a range of household types with dif-<br />
ferent crop assemblages, technical options,<br />
resource systems and ecological zones.<br />
Models seek to assess the nutritional and<br />
economic viability of the hypothetical sys-<br />
tems based mainly on secondary data but<br />
also including the results of on-farm and<br />
on-station research. Bioeconomic models<br />
will also indicate the potential impacts of<br />
IAA systems on fish and food production,<br />
farm income and employment at house-<br />
hold, village and regional levels. Implica-<br />
tions in terms of policies on the input and<br />
output delivery systems, including tech-<br />
nical advice, are indicated.<br />
Sustainability of integrated models.<br />
Founded on the bioresource flow models<br />
constructed by farmers, existing and fu-<br />
ture integrated systems will be compared<br />
using several performance indicarors for<br />
system sustainability. Values for enterprise<br />
diversity, bioresource recycling, economic<br />
efficiency and resource system capacity are<br />
computed. Analysis also compares the