Year of publication 1986

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Pages p.58

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Author M.V. Gupta and . J.C.J. van Zon ;Fisheries and Aquaculture Management Division

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Product type Project

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Edition 1

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Synopsis (short abstract) The integration of fish culture with livestock rearing holds great promise and potential for augmenting production of animal protein, betterment of the economy, and generation of employment in rural India. Until recently, however, no worthwhile attempt was made in this direction even though 80% of the country's population live in villages, and are undernourished and in urgent need of gainful employment. The work done on pig-fish farming and duck-fish farming in India is described and the resul ts obtained, including the economics of integrated systems, are compared with those of modern semi-intensive fish culture. Integrated farming systems involving fish production have opened up new horizons of high animal protein production at very low cost. Fish yields of 7,300 kg/ha/yr and 4,323 kg/ha/yr were achieved for pig-fish and duck-fish farming, respectively. The pig and duck manure replaced fish feed and pond fertilizers. The costs/kg of fish produced were Rs1.07 (pig-fish) and Rs1.61 (d uck-fish). The raising of ducks on a fish pond fits very well with the ecological niche concept of polyculture: the unutilized surface water niche in fish culture becomes occupied. The possibilities of combining horticulture and fish culture by growing vegetables, fruit trees, and cattle fodder on the terraced embankments of ponds and using pond detritus as fertilizer are also discussed.

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