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Exploring
rice-fish farming for West Africa
 Riz au poisson (rice with fish) is one of the most popular dishes in West African cuisine. So what can be better for a farmer from this region than growing them together?
Rice-fish farming—which has been quite successfully practiced for centuries by Asian farmers—is an integrated system that promotes species diversification and nutrient recycling. In this system, rice and fish are grown together either on the same plot or on adjacent plots and the by-products of one are used as inputs by the other.
Rice-fish farming is one example of integrated-irrigation aquaculture (IIA), which is a strategy to increase agricultural productivity from every drop of water while improving the financial sustainability of investments in irrigation.
Water and cultivable land are key limiting resources around the world, particularly in drought-prone West Africa. One way to increase the productivity of land and water resources effectively is to integrate irrigation and aquaculture.
In rice-fish farming for instance, the fish provide a high-protein "bonus" crop to the rice farmer as well as additional fertilizer to the field. Fish also help control harmful insects in the rice field, feeding on the intermediate hosts of waterborne diseases such as malaria. Overall rice yields increase, fish enrich family diets, farmers’ incomes rise and soils become more fertile.
IIA thus helps to increase the productivity and sustainability of water, land and associated resources while improving farmers’ income and well-being.
Conscious of IIA’s potential for improving food security in drought-prone West African countries, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Inland Valley Consortium (IVC), jointly organized a workshop focused on IIA for West Africa, 4-7 November 2003 in Bamako, Mali, under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fishery, Government of Mali.
Thirty representatives from 10 West African countries participated in the workshop, which had Resource Persons from FAO, WorldFish Center, Department for International Development (DFID), Wageningen University, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Orgnaization – The Institute for Water Education (UNESCO-IHE), Association pisciculture et développement rural en afrique tropicale humide (APDRA), University of Newcastle and Comité national de la recherche agricole (CNRA).
Exploring the potential of IIA for West Africa through the help of a wide range of partners is a typical example of the mode of operation of IVC, which was launched in 1993 as a System-wide Initiative of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The Consortium is hosted by WARDA with financial support from France, The Netherlands, the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), the European Union and WARDA.
IVC serves as a platform for regional cooperation to develop technologies and operational support systems for intensified but sustainable use of inland valleys in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Inland valleys constitute an important agricultural and hydrological asset and can make a major contribution to food security and poverty alleviation in SSA.
From an initial group of seven, membership of IVC now includes 10 West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo) and active national IVC coordination units have been established in these countries. The Gambia will shortly become a member of the Consortium.
Its membership also includes eight international research and development institutions. IVC membership is open to countries and organizations working on the development of inland valleys in SSA.
As part of its Phase I (1994-1999) and Phase II (2000-2004) activities, IVC has funded over 100 research activities in its member countries covering all aspects of its research agenda. It has also undertaken several specific studies, such as a rapid diagnostic appraisal system for water management; the role of female farmers in inland-valley cultivation; costs of water management systems; indigenous knowledge on soil conservation; and functions of natural vegetation in inland valleys.
One of IVC’s major achievements has been the development of a common multi-scale characterization methodology. The methodology was used to characterize 18 key sites in the 10 member countries. The results of this work are helping researchers to have a better understanding of the characteristics and dynamics of inland-valley agro-ecosystems.
A regional database called the West Africa Inland Valley Information System (WAIVIS) has been released on CD-ROM and on the IVC web site. It includes the principal data collected by IVC members.
As part of its future activities, IVC is planning to continue to update WAIVIS and to include elements and indicators of the dynamics of inland-valley agro-ecosystems. WAIVIS will help monitor the evolution of inland valleys in the member countries and serve as a decision-making tool for researchers and policy-makers. As Phase II is coming to an end, discussions have started on the future of IVC and the possibility of embarking on Phase III.
Phase III will focus on the scaling up of results, extensive technology dissemination, expanding IVC’s program beyond West to Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, modeling, especially the development of a decision-support system for policy-makers, and new initiatives, such as rice-fish farming.
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