Rural aquaculture: reflections ten years on

摘要

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations commissioned a monograph on rural aquaculture in the late 1990s with a view to developing a framework for aquaculture development oriented towards poverty alleviation. In this paper, one of the authors of that monograph reviews the experience which led to the views expressed in the monograph ten years on. Definitions of rural aquaculture are revisited, stressing the poverty dimension and new classifications of small-scale aquaculture are setagainst those outlined in the monograph. Two experiences are re-examined: the Aqua Outreach Programme of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in mainland Southeast Asia and the Greater Noakhali Aquaculture Extension Project and its successor, the Regional Fisheries and Livestock Development Project, in Bangladesh. Both illustrate the nature of the farming systems approach advocated in the monograph at two levels: the farm system and the wider regional support system. The AIT Aqua Outreach approach was, however, limited by its origins as an applied research project and remained a technology or supply-driven project. In contrast, the two Bangladesh extension and development projects have taken the farming systems approach in a more participatory direction by adopting the Farmer Field School methodology for farmer training and have widened the range of stakeholders in the regional system in an attempt to ensure sustainability at the end of the project period. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications for methods and indicators for assessing the contribution of rural aquaculture in sustainable rural development, stressing the importance of measuring human and institutional capacity.