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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

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