4. STATUS OF INTEGRATED IRRIGATION-AQUACULTURE

4.1 Integrated irrigation-aquaculture and its potential

Water is recognized as a key limiting resource for the coming millennium. Optimal productivity of water and lands is becoming a critical issue. This is even more pronounced in drought-prone areas of Africa.

One way to increase resources productivity effectively is to integrate irrigation and aquaculture, for example by developing and enhancing fisheries inirrigation small water bodies, by reusing irrigation water leaving irrigation plots for feeding fish ponds, by stocking fish in irrigation canals, by building ponds in adjacent water-logged areas unsuitable for agriculture, by using crop by-products as nutrient inputs for farmed fish, and and by fertilizing irrigated vegetable gardens with pond mud deposits and irrigating these gardens with fertilized pond water.

At the household level, integrated irrigation-aquaculture (IIA) contributes to helps establish food security, balanced nutrition and increased incomes.

Although both irrigation and aquaculture are rather well known technologies, their deliberate merger is relatively new to Africa where adapted techniques for IIA field application have still to be developed.

There is need to exchange information on IIA and to identify appropriate types of integration for the various agro-ecological zones found across the Region. The 1997 FAO-funded mission (Coche, 1998) established the benefits of developing an IIA Network and identified four potential countries to participate in a first phase of 18 months minimum^[1].

4.2 IIA and the FAO Special Programme for Food Security

The IIA farming system fits well into the water control and diversification components of the FAO Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS). IIA activities could become prominent in this Programme which is now being developed in several Sub-Saharan countries.

Except in Zambia where IIA has already been well received, the other countries have not yet adopted IIA in their farming systems. There is however great potential for IIA in the Region and the SPFS could demonstrate it in its projects wherever feasible.

4.3 Country statements

Country statements on the status of irrigation, aquaculture and IIA are presented in Annexes 3 to 7. They can be summarized as follows.

• Burkina Faso: IIA is seldom practised but research is implemented on integrated Azolla-rice-fish culture. The SPFS is still in its pilot phase. Three sites with full water control (rice irrigation schemes) and some inland valleys (high water table) have been identified for improved water management. Integration of irrigation practices with aquaculture is envisaged.
• Côte d'Ivoire: IIA is not well developed. Research on IIA has been started in the Central-West Region Project but results have not yet been extended to farmers. Some forms of integration exist, especially in irrigated rice culture. There are not yet any IIA activities in the SPFS.
• Ghana: the Irrigation Company for the Upper Regions (ICOUR) has been established to promote the production of food crops by small-scale farmers, including fish. The SPFS is still in an early stage of development. It is planned to integrate aquaculture into a series of irrigation projects, but most of these are not operational yet.
• Mali: there has been some integration of aquaculture with irrigated vegetable farming in the Office du Niger irrigation schemes where water is available by gravity throughout the year. However, this has not been very successful due to socio-economic constraints. The SPFS is still in its pilot pilot phase. It is planned to use IIA at three sites, which include full water control and inland valleys.
• Zambia: SPFS includes some IIA activities in the Central and Lusaka Provinces where 50 ponds (1.2 ha) have been developed. Potential also exists for IIA in a new IFAD/FAO development project to be implemented soon.