Notes for a Technical Seminar on Aquaculture and Economic Growth, held during ALCOM's fifth Steering Committee Meeting, 11-14 February 1992, Mangochi, Malawi

Wijkstrom, U.N.

Notes for a Technical Seminar on Aquaculture and Economic Growth, held during ALCOM's fifth Steering Committee Meeting, 11-14 February 1992, Mangochi, Malawi

Year of publication 1992

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages p.33

Author Wijkstrom, U.N.

Product type Project

Category Programme / project report

Edition 1

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) The seminar was divided into four parts. The first examined the economic behaviour of the typical small-scale farmer. He grows four or five agricultural crops with the land, water, manure, farm tools and household labour he has available. Fish farming is a secondary activity. Whether he takes up fish farming and to what extent depends on how beneficial it is likely to be. If he opts for fish farming, he foregoes some other option. He has to weigh the likely costs and benefits of such a choice -- in particular, the costs of the various inputs for each option, and the prices he can charge for the outputs. On the basis of this assessment, he may opt for a combination of fish farming and one or more agricultural crops, or he may not take up fish farming at all. Extension advice to the small-scale farmer has to be based on economic realities. It may be inappropriate to urge an increase in fish pond production if this means the farmer must divert to fish ponds fertilizer that can be more p roductively deployed in agriculture. If fish ponds in an area lie abandoned, it may be because they have outlived their economic utility; extension work should focus then on improving the output per man hour of any pond that is still in use. The seminar's second part discussed the goals of fish farming, from the standpoint of the government as well as the fish farmer. The point was made that the goals of government economic policies coincide with those of farmers who culture fish. The governme nt wants to promote national income by increasing the production of goods and services in the country -- including fish. The farmer, according to the surveys conducted in Zambia, engages in fish farming to increase his consumption, either by eating more fish or by selling fish and buying something he needs.

Language English

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The report summarized the proceedings of consultation session on “The integrated extension approach and Aquaculture extension experiences and gave the findings and recommendations of the three working groups on integration of aquaculture into agriculture extension services, delivery mechanisms: the role and use of farmer to farmer and institutional extension mechanisms in aquaculture development and aquaculture research-extension linkages. Extended abstracts of 15 papers presented during the con sultation are reproduced. Participants agreed that aquaculture should become part of the agriculture extension and that it was necessary for the agriculture extension service to undergo an important conceptual change in set-up and approach, putting much more emphasis on assisting farmers in the process of problem solving and decision making. The monitoring and evaluation of the service should be carried out in participation with the farming community and farmers, field extension workers, supervi sors and researchers should operate on a basis of equal footing.