Focus on . . . Aquaculture
Smallholders living on Malawi's Zomba plateau are harvesting over 1000kgs of fish a year from seasonal ponds that double as fertile rice fields when the ponds dry up. However integrated aquaculture and agriculture (IAA), has yet to become well established in sub-Saharan Africa. One reason has been a lack of technical and management advice, a deficiency that a diploma course in Cameroon's Western Province seeks to address. We also feature some new developments from Asian aquaculture: a hormone-based spawning kit to improve control over breeding; a technique to help shrimp farmers minimise their losses to disease; and a super tilapia that grows fast and can tolerate higher levels of pollution.
Hole in the ground - muddy and bare
A very high proportion of the world's population enjoys eating fish, and a diet rich in fish produces a healthy population. Africa is no exception. So why have Africa's smallscale farmers not embraced the many opportunities...
Fueled by increasing poverty and demand for land, slash-and-burn agriculture practised in sub-Saharan Africa is putting forests under threat and resulting in the desertification of many millions of hectares of rainfed cropland...
Imagine a small, flat-bottomed valley surrounded by low grass-covered hills. The air is still, humid and hot. Ahead, reflecting the sun, the sky and the surrounding hills, are a series of rectangular expanses of water - of about 5,000 square metres surface area...
By the bank of the river Lo in Vietnam, a man bends down to lift the lid of a floating bamboo cage. Inside the cage are grass carp, a popular species that can be raised at high density on grass and other vegetation...
Aquaculture has been practised for thousands of years and yet a problem that still persists in modern day fish farming is the reluctance of many species to breed in captivity. With traditional fish spawning methods, fish have to be killed in the process. Alternatively, wild fry have to be caught and transported...
Fish have been an important part of man's diet for many thousands of years. And yet, unlike livestock species, fish have not been domesticated. The cultivation of carp has a long tradition and the common carp...
In the front yard of a government fisheries institution in Thailand, a lady sits selling fish seed. The small fingerlings are swimming in crystal clear water in inflated oxygenated bags hanging up in the cool shade of a tree...
Every year, as the rainy season ends and the land dries, salt water seeps into the rivers, canals and ditches in the Mekong delta of Vietnam. Growing of crops becomes impossible until the fresh water returns with the rain...
