4038A Integrated Agricultural Systems: Overall Farming System

Requirements for the assessment

The pair must first agree a suitable area of the world on which to base their case study. Once decided, each pair must use a real farming systems situation (not an individual farm) to address the following issues:

a) A description of the overall farming system and the way it is shaped by climate and soil type.

b) A brief analysis of the political, economic and social pressures which have led to the development of the farming systems in the area chosen.

c) An analysis of the current and future threats to sustainable food and non-food agricultural production

d) An analysis of the progress made in the area towards a more sustainable approach to production using integrated methods e.g. Integrated Farm Management, Integrated Pest Management, Integrated Weed and Disease Management, Integrated Crop Management to name but a few.

You should then provide a brief summary of the effects that any integrated methods have had on the area’s environmental and production resources.

The case study can be based in any part of the world, either developed or developing, resource-poor or resource-rich, under any political system, and commercial or non-commercial farming.

Answer:

Pre stocking preparations

Pre stocking preparations refers to preparation of the pond for cultivation through pond management in such a way that problems of unsatisfactory growth, poor survival and others is removed. It also helps in improving the natural food availability in proper quality and quantity for the purpose of stocking (Ujoh, Ujoh and Kile 2016). The pre stocking activities of integrated fish and rice farming of the tropical Nigerian region includes rice cum crop culture of farming. In case of practising of the fish culture in the fields of rice there are two main methods used for the same that is- simultaneous culture and rotational culture. In case of cultivation of the fish and rice together it is called the simultaneous cultivation and this includes digging the plot and the dykes are strengthened with the help of embedding straw. There is a variation in the rice plot for deciding the water depth and the stocking density is also to be increased in case of supplementary feed being given. In case of rotational rice fish culture, there is an alternate cultivation of the f

Rice variety, fish species and stocking density

Stocking density means the per hectare stock number of a grazing area or a onetime unit and it also refers to the stock in a unit area in a grazing situation that has high density (Fregene 2017). The fish varieties that is used in case of integrated rice fish farming system is that of wild fishes such as clarias, catfish and hetrobranchus that generally enter the rice paddies that is flooded with the help of irrigation canals or streams and then these varieties of fishes are trapped and are made to grow along with the rice crops. At the time of harvesting, the captured fish are either sold or consumed directly. In case of the integrated fish and rice farming system, the catfish is the variety of fish that is mostly caught because of their ability to move from one environment to other without or with water for a distance of 169meters. The rice varieties that are cultivated under the integrated system of rice cum fish farming system are Rajarajan, Pattambi and various others. Mono cropping of rice, mono cultivation of fish and various other methods are used for this purpose. The stocking densities are increased in integrated farming system for the purpose of increasing the production of fish. Along with higher stocking density other supplementary products, proper pond aeration is required. However the optimal density of stock varies depending on various factors.

Rice field ecosystem that is the type of rice

Certain factors needs to be concerned in rice farming such as whether it is to be grown in upland or low land, or is it high yielding or low yielding, the duration for harvesting, its impact on better quality of cooking and is the rice crop is drought and disease resistant (Malgwi, Mailumo and Sanni 2017). Rice farming is basically carried out in AEZ or the agro-ecological zones despite occurrence in subtropics that are warm or cold. The rice land ecosystem can basically be divided into four main types- lowland rain fed rice ecosystem, rice ecosystem that is irrigated, upland rice eco-system and eco-system that is prone to flood. Most of the cultivation are wet land cultivation expect for upland rice cultivation. The low land rice ecosystem that is rain fed are the ones that has to face the problems of both drought and floods and moreover there is a lack of control on water. The rice ecosystem that is upland differs from the valleys that are low-lying because of the steep lands that are sloping, undulating, lateral movement of water is there and there is high runoff of water (Watt 2018). In this case the texture, the water holding capacity and status of nutrients and various other factors. The rice lands ecosystems that are remaining are subjected to flooding that is uncontrolled. These areas also suffer from other problems such as drought or acid-sulphate and various others.

Constraints to this system of agricultural production

Some of the major constraints of the integrated rice cum fish farming is that it should make use of restricted amount of pesticides, this system is dependent more on the usage of water than paddy, the yield of rice in this system is generally lesser because of the trenches and when the trenches are dug, it makes draining difficult. Water regulation has an important role to play in the integrated system of rice and fish because at the time of stoking of fish in the field, the fields cannot be dried. The production of fish in case of open farming of fishes is much higher than in case of the integrated fish farming technique because of the small size of the fishes (Olapade et al. 2017). The fish paddy culture cultivation is commercially more feasible than the rice and fish system of farming because the marketing of the fish becomes difficult in the same. Irrigation of the paddy fields is done through water channels and therefore it becomes very difficult to check for the pesticides and water quality. More amount of money is required for the cultivation of the rice and fish culture as compared to the amount required in case of rice cultivation. More labor is required in case of fish and rice cultivation than in case of paddy cultivation. For small plot holders, the production is usually very less because limited irrigation facilities, further these small holders cannot take advantage of modern technologies because of lack of resources.

Political or economic pressures that have encouraged or discouraged farmer’s

Some of the political impacts on the Nigerian integrated agriculture system that motivates the employees include- support for irrigation and better farming services from the World Bank. The government is further providing access to credit facilities such as loans and others to the employees such that the farmers can avail better farming facilities. Further the Transforming Irrigation management in Nigeria (TRIMING) aims at improving the irrigation facilities and are benefitting the farmers. Therefore these political factors are acting as an opportunity to the farmers and motivating them in their work. In order to improve the economic conditions of the farmers they are being provided adequate capital and for this purpose the participants are divided into credit and non-credit beneficiaries. It has also been seen that when the farmers get loans on easy terms and more easily their production improves and becomes much higher than the production of non-beneficiaries. Some of the political and economic pressures that demotivate the farmers are lack of interest in the field of agriculture, various economic issues, unstable prices, poor marketing activities and various others.

Current and future threats to sustainable food and non-food agricultural production

Some of the major trends and challenges of the sustainable food and non-agricultural production includes- economic growth, urbanization, population growth, ageing, agricultural innovation and productivity and various others. Challenges on the other hand includes- the way in which sustainability can improve the overall productivity in order to meet the demand of the people, challenges related to sustainable natural resources, climate changes and various others. The trends that are taking place globally are having a huge impact on poverty, food security and food sustainability. Population of the world is continuously growing which is having an impact on the demand for food and there is also a change in the consumption pattern of people because of changing income levels and as a result more pressure is being created on the existing natural resources. There are a number of economical structural changes that is taking place as a result of the population and economic growth. Climate changes have some serious impacts in regions that are insecure in terms of availability of food. There are some major challenges as well such as challenge on agriculture and food, there is a requirement to re-think the existing food system and various others.

References

Fregene, B.T., 2017. Baseline Socio-Economic Study of Sustainable Integrated Pond Based Aquaculture with Rice and Poultry Production in Nigeria. African Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Management, 2(1).

Kaushik, M.S., Kumar, A., Abraham, G., Dash, N.P. and Singh, P.K., 2019. Field evaluations of agrochemical toxicity to cyanobacteria in rice field ecosystem: a review. Journal of applied phycology, 31(1), pp.471-489.

Malgwi, C.J., Mailumo, S.S. and Sanni, S.A., 2017. Optimal Resource Allocation in Integrated Fish-Based Farming Systems in Kaduna Metropolis, Nigeria. Journal of Agriculture and Ecology Research International, pp.1-9.

Olapade, O.J., Bangura, H., Tholley, J.B. and Momoh, R.R., 2017. Economic differential of integrated fish, rice cum piggery and fish, rice cum poultry production systems. African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, 17(3), pp.12325-12342.

Ujoh, F.T., Ujoh, F. and Kile, I., 2016. Integrated Production of Rice and Fish: Toward a Sustainable Agricultural Approach. Journal of Scientific Research and Reports, pp.1-9.

Watt, H.J., 2018. Impact of Integrated Fish Farming IFF on Resource Use Efficiency and Farmers Livelihood.

Yarahmadi, P., Miandare, H.K., Hoseinifar, S.H., Gheysvandi, N. and Akbarzadeh, A., 2015. The effects of stocking density on hemato-immunological and serum biochemical parameters of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Aquaculture international, 23(1), pp.55-63.