As a follow-up of the publication on Rural Aquaculture: Overview and framework for country reviews - RAP Publication 1997/36, efforts have been made to review rural aquaculture in some of the major aquacultural countries in Asia and the Pacific Region. This is the third publication under this series, followed by Rural Aquaculture in the Philippines and in India. It is expected that similar publications on other countries in the region would follow.
China has a long history of aquaculture. Its recorded history of freshwater aquaculture is more than 3,000 years old. The country is endowed with favourable natural conditions. There are over 32,000 km of coastline, 1.3 million ha of shallow seawaters and mudflats, and about 17.5 million ha of freshwater areas. In 1997, fisheries production was about 21 million mt, representing 56% of the total fisheries production. Aquaculture is the fastest growing sub-sector of agriculture. In a short period of 50 years, aquaculture production has increased from 20,000 mt in 1949 to 21 million mt in 1997, an increase of over 1,000 times. China is now the largest producer, producing over 55% of the global aquaculture production. This dramatic growth was made possible by the introduction of free market policy by the State in 1978, especially the policy with stress on the implementation of household contract responsibility system with remuneration linked to output. In 1997, aquaculture production value was about 5% of total agricultural production value of 2,459 billion yuan; per capita fish availability from aquaculture reached 17.5 kg; and aquaculture products accounted for most of the fisheries export worth US$ 3.1 billion.
In 1997, the full-time labourers engaged in aquaculture were estimated at 3.29 million, of whom 2.83 million were engaged in freshwater aquaculture and 0.46 million in marine aquaculture. Besides, there were huge part-time labourers engaged in pond construction, pond renovation and management, harvesting, marketing etc. Though information on national per capita income of aquaculture household is not available, small surveys taken in 1997 showed that per capita net income of aquaculture household (5,325 yuan) is more than twice that of agricultural household (2,090 yuan). In rural aquaculture in China, women play active role in the whole production system, especially in seed production, seed collection and rearing, stocking, etc. They also do very well in making culture rafts and racks, seed collectors, ropes and lines. Women are also very much involved in harvesting and marketing. In fact, in rural aquaculture, the whole family is involved regardless of gender.
In China, though the aquaculture production system is organized on the basis of household contract responsibility system, by and large the culture systems practised are basically traditional (rice-fish culture) and of various degrees of semi-intensive (pond fish culture and shrimp culture, mariculture of seaweeds and molluscs). Intensive and commercial aquaculture are being carried out in limited scale in pond fish culture, shrimp culture and some mollusc culture. On the whole, aquaculture practices are small-scale and either household or community-based, with the primary objectives of food production and income generation for the household/community. As such, most aquaculture practices in China should be regarded as rural aquaculture.
Aquaculture in China is playing an increasingly important role in food security and rural development by producing food fish, creating employment and generating income for rural household.
