The issue
There is a growing global trend towards an
intensification of aquaculture systems but the bulk
of aquaculture production - roughly estimated at
40% of total world production - is still derived
from "rural type" small-scale extensive culture
systems. As national surveys show, poverty is
concentrated in rural areas (though in Latin
America, high levels of urbanization mean that the
poor live mostly in urban areas) where this type of
aquaculture has an enormous non-quantifiable social
value in the reduction of poverty.
The term "rural disadvantaged", as with similar
social science terms, has a relative dimension but
is normally used synonymously with "rural poor".
The absolute sense of "poor", following the World
Bank definition, refers to those earning less than
the equivalent of US$1 a day, a high proportion of
whom are ethnic minorities, landless, women, youth,
disabled, malnourished, etc.
Generally, the main characteristics of these
disadvantaged groups have to do with their
resources, or a chronic lack of access to the five
basic capitals: natural (land, animals, water),
physical (infrastructure, machinery), financial
(money), human (education, knowledge) and social
(organizational, collective self-help skills). A
major reason why the disadvantaged have so much
problem escaping poverty is that they have trouble
accumulating such capital. Delivering services to
disadvantaged groups has a high unit cost-return
because their scale of operation is low, they may
live in isolated areas and their ability to
co-finance the costs of those services is
limited.
Rural aquaculture is often more associated with
agriculture than fisheries. As such, disadvantaged
groups in rural areas are affected by most of the
limitations described above.
Current trends towards less government
intervention and the reduction of resources to
assist disadvantaged groups highlight the need to
make full use of lessons learned from the multiple
efforts made in this direction.
Possible solutions
What is first needed is an appropriate policy
mechanism to enable and ensure that governance
hindered by institutional weaknesses - common in
developing countries - are compensated by the
participation of all involved stakeholders
(administrators, politicians, aquaculturists,
environmental and interested organizations). Usable
strategies suitable for implementation must be
developed for private sector involvement .
In addition to governance, other sustainable
livelihood approaches (SLA) must be applied with
emphasis on:
- target-group selection - tools for this
purpose such as Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA),
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) have
significantly improved the process;
- open-ended development projects with
flexibility for interventions;
- identifying and implementing viable
strategies to transform structures and processes
(laws, regulations, institutions, land tenure,
wealth distribution, social equity, etc.).
Small-scale aquaculture in general has
traditionally received significant assistance from
governments and developing agencies until reaching
self-sustainability. The new scenario, with less
capacity by governments for this type of support,
demands alternative innovative development methods
bearing in mind that, the poorer the target group,
the heavier and longer the assistance. This applies
especially to extension and technical assistance
strategies. Development projects must last long
enough for the activity to become self-
sustainable:
- no matter how small a farm that includes
some aquaculture component, it must be managed
with an entrepreneurial approach. Fish for food
is important but fish for cash has proved to be
the recurrent motivation;
- projects must encompass all the components
of the activity: technology, training
(technical, entrepreneurial, to form
associations), inputs, infrastructure, credits,
commercialization;
- from a technical point of view, farming
systems and low-energy cost culture methods, are
the key elements to success.
Action taken
The following are some of the most
representative initiatives carried out:
- In the SADCC countries of Southern Africa,
the recently-completed FAO Aquaculture for Local
Community Development Programme implemented
numerous projects addressed to disadvantaged
groups. These include utilization of small water
bodies in Lesotho, integration of fish farming
into the farm-household system in Luapula
Province-Zambia, adoption of fish farming in
Eastern Province-Zambia, integration of gender
issues into fish farming in Chimbote-Zambia,
rehabilitation of homestead ponds in Lumombo
Region-Swaziland, developing community-based
management of fisheries resources in small water
bodies in Zimbabwe, utilization of small water
bodies in Botswana.
- The FAO Special Programme for Food
Security (SPFS) aims at increasing food
security in low-income food deficit countries
(LIFDC) through rapid increases in productivity
and food production as well as through reduction
in year-to-year production variability on an
economically and environmentally sustainable
basis. Small-scale rural aquaculture with
important components for disadvantaged groups
has been included in many of these SPFS projects
that focus on irrigation.
- A pipeline project between FAO and the
Network of Aquaculture Centres in
Asia-Pacific (NACA) is bound to become the
first systematic initiative to promote
small-scale aquaculture and associated aquatic
resource management within the Asian region as
an important contributor to improved rural
livelihood systems that responds to concerns
for: improved household food security, poverty
alleviation, environmental sustainability and
gender equity.
- Rice-fish farming, as a tool for poverty
alleviation and food security for disadvantaged
groups, has received a great deal of attention
in the recent past. FAO has implemented several
projects in Africa and Asia in collaboration
with the Consultative Group on International
Rice Research Institute (CGIAR), the
International Center for Living Aquatic
Resources Management (ICLARM) the UK
Department for International Development
(DFID) and others.
- In Latin America, a network on rural
aquaculture, partially funded by FAO, advocates
for an improvement of target-group
identification allowing for the selection of
disadvantaged groups, operates from a private
University in Chile, based on two regional
meetings organized recently on this
subject.
Outlook
Perspectives for aquaculture practiced by
disadvantaged groups vary significantly from region
to region: as far as small-scale rural aquaculture
is concerned, land tenure and increased rate of
urbanization is an important issue in Latin
America, sustainable resource management (i.e. soil
fertility) is very important for Africa and
sustainable production technologies (i.e. rice-fish
production) is a very important issue in Asia. In
any case, it would not make much sense to discuss
the future of aquaculture as a tool for poverty
alleviation for disadvantaged groups in isolation
from whole rural development trends.
Developing countries - in their new
"facilitating" role - should retain some
"interventionist" functions when dealing with
certain issues such as rural disadvantaged groups.
The adoption of food producing technologies such as
aquaculture should, however, be based on a full
knowledge of its potential and limitations.
Investments in these projects could in some cases
be better used in other more cost-effective
activities.
Small-scale aquaculture, like many other food
producing methods used in the poor rural world,
could be considered a primitive, low-efficient
technology, nonetheless it is still a valid way of
decreasing hunger in many parts of the world.
Modern aquaculture will develop better and more
efficient technologies to cope with the increasing
demand of fish products but small-scale rural
aquaculture will keep being a very important issue
regarding food security for disadvantaged groups.
It would be too simplistic to think that, as the
technology involved is very simple, its
implementation is also simple. There is still much
room to explore how to improve the existing
knowledge on the social, economic and
biotechnological components of small-scale rural
aquaculture.
|
