Success Stories In Asian Aquaculture - Library - Network of ...

2 Recent Developments in Rice-Fish Culture in China312.9.1 An Effective Approach of Food Productionwith Minimum Natural ResourceRice–fish culture system is a typical way of producing more food througheffective utilization of existing land resource. With good management practices,some 500–1,000 kg of fish products can be produced from one ha ofrice field through concurrent farming system with very limited other materialinputs.Contribution of rice–fish culture to inland aquaculture production in 1990 and2007 is presented in Fig. 2.4 . The contribution of rice–fish culture to total inlandaquaculture production in China has increased from 3.5% in 1990 to 6.08% in2007. In 2007, rice–fish culture provided 1.16 million tons of high quality fishproducts to Chinese people with an increase of 8.87 folds since 1990. Consideringthe fast development of the overall inland aquaculture industry, this contribution isin fact very significant.In addition to the increased fish production, well-managed rice–fish culturepractices can also increase the productivity of rice. Usually, unit production of ricefrom rice–fish culture can be increased by 5–15% (Wu 2000). With the present areaof 1.55 million ha of rice–fish culture, it is estimated that some additional 1 milliontons of rice are produced every year.2.9.2 Effective System Producing Green and OrganicRice and Aquatic ProductsWith the improvement of living standards of people, there is increasing demand forfood of better quality, particularly safety. There is growing concern over the qualityof rice and fish produced with extensive use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, andaqua-drugs in intensive fish culture and rice cultivation. Market demand for greenand organic foods is growing in China, which results in much higher price of greenand organic food products than ordinary ones.With the recent trends of development of ecosystem of rice–fish culture andgood management practices of rice–fish culture, there is a tendency to minimizethe use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and various therapeuticsin the production process. Ecosystem rice–fish culture has now become animportant source of green and organic rice, and aquatic products. While meetingthe demand of consumers, it also brings the farmers’ additional incomethrough much higher market value. This has become an effective incentive forrice–fish farmers to shift to environmentally friendly ecosystem productionpractices.