Fish farmers
In the 1990s, the world's nations reported a total of close to four million people working in aquaculture (FAO), but this is probably a considerable underestimate.
In the river delta regions of Asia, where ground water levels make permanent, or at least seasonal, ponds common, a high proportion of the rural population has some involvement in farming fish. The true total of the world's fish farmers is likely to be in the tens of millions. In Viet Nam alone, employment in aquaculture in the year 2000 has been estimated at close to 700 000 people1. In China, it is estimated2 there are some half-million new entrants to aquaculture every year.
Inland aquaculture
Inland freshwater fish farming is the largest single component of world aquaculture production and most of this kind of farming takes place in Asia. The typical Asian fish farmer is poor, with only a small landholding; the fish he or she can produce, often as a supplementary activity to agriculture, makes an important contribution to the family food budget. Small surpluses are usually sold at the village market to supplement household income.
Along the coasts, it is often people working in the capture fisheries sector who first become involved in some fish farming activity, often as a response to declining catches. Finding a way to keep the smaller fish that are caught, and rear them to a larger size in nets or pens, (especially high value species such as crayfish and grouper); helping natural recruitment by providing additional settlement substrates for mussels and oysters and the facilities for them to grow to market size; building racks to grow seaweeds and seeding them with shoots of the right species: these are some of the simple techniques innovative fishers have developed to boost their catches and income.
Profile of a typical fisher in Asia and Africa
In Asia or Africa the typical fish farmer is an owner operator, running fish farm production alone or with the help of close family members. Some farmers in those regions have made good profits from farming, especially with species like catfish or shrimp. Prudent management has allowed them to raise their living standards and make a move from agricultural worker to the middle class. Others, it has to be said, have suffered from their entry into aquaculture and become debt ridden. It is important that programmes to promote aquaculture are well planned and managed.
In Asia and Africa there are also some large commercial operations and in these, many of the fish farmers may be working in the activity as employees. This is the more common situation in Latin America too, due to the more uneven land distribution there. Many of the fish farmers in Latin America - and the total is probably upwards of 100 000 - are working in shrimp farming, the dominant sector in the region. They will range from poor field workers to more affluent middle managers.
Most fish farmers in the developed countries also work as employees. Some aquaculture companies can be quite small with only a few staff, but because industries like salmon or bass farming are capital intensive, they are typically run by larger, often multi-national or multi-sectoral companies. The fish farmer doing the daily work is an employee at the labourer level, sometimes a part-time or ex-fisher.
Development strategies
Development strategies thus need to take account of the structure of landholding and aquaculture employment in a particular region. The promotion of aquaculture to the poor to improve their income and food security must be approached with the risks being properly assessed and managed. Integrating fish culture with a farmer's existing rice production, for instance, may be a more prudent approach than encouraging him to dig up his whole rice field and make it into a fish pond. In Latin America, the pragmatic approach, if shrimp or tilapia farming is to bring economic benefit and food security to the rural poor, may be still to encourage large scale capital investment, but with the necessary safeguards for the fish farmers who will be working in the operation.
1 Le Tanh Luu, personal communication
2 Li Sifa, personal communication