RICE-FISH CULTURE IN NORTHEAST THAILAND: STABILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY Kenneth T. MacKay, Greg Chapman, John Sollows, and Niran Thongpan1 INTRODUCTION India. In Indonesia, modern rice-fish culture was started in the mid-nineteenth century The small-scale farmers of northeast (for excellent reviews, see Khoo and Tan Thailand are the poorest in the country. One 1980, and Ardiwinata 1957). crop of rice is grown during the rainy season. Upland crops (e.g., peanuts and corn) are Fish are important nutritionally and often grown in rain-fed areas during the dry economically to many small farmers in Asia. season, while either an upland crop or a The fish harvested from rice paddies are second crop of rice is grown during the dry often farmers' main protein source. Fish in season in irrigated areas. Traditional and lo- rice paddies are also important economically, cally improved varieties are used. Soils are and benefits are often greater to tenant farm- poor, fertilizer levels are low, and some pesti- ers than to owners (Khoo and Tan 1980). cides are used. Fish have recently been in- However, fish production in paddy fields has troduced to rice paddies and it is hy- declined sharply in the past 20 years. Indica- pothesized that this increase in diversity will tions from Indonesia (Koesoemadinata 1980) increase income, decrease fertilizer and pesti- and Malaysia (Khoo and Tan 1977) are that cide use, and increase system stability and the introduction of double and triple rice sustainability. This paper describes both the cropping along with increased fertilizer and farming systems methodology used to test pesticide use have been the contributing these hypotheses and the preliminary results. causes. Similar decreases have also occurred in China (Li 1986). History of Rice-Fish Culture In Thailand, the integrated cultivation of rice fish The culture of rice and fish together has and has been practiced for more probably existed since the first farmers plant- than 200 years. Early applications were ed rice in the lowland swamps where they dependent upon capturing wild seed-fish for had previously harvested fish. In China, stocking the rice fields. In the 1940s the rice-fish culture can be dated to the middle Department of Fisheries started to promote of the Han Dynasty (A.D. 100) (Li 1986), rice-fish culture by providing seed-fish and while in southeast Asia, rice-fish culture may extending technologies. Rice-fish farming proliferated have been introduced 1,500 years ago from in the central plains where fish yields ranged from 137 to 304 kg/ha/crop. Rice were 1 Kenneth MacKay, program officer (Crop and yields enhanced by 25% to 30% in Animal Production Systems), Agriculture, Food and fields integrating fish. However, the intro- Nutrition Sciences Division, International Development duction of high-yielding varieties of rice and Research Centre, Regional Office for Southeast and East increased fertilizer and pesticide applications Asia, Tanglin P.O. Box 101, Singapore 9124; Greg Chapman, CUSO cooperant (Fisheries), Sakon Nakorn, resulted in near collapse of rice-fish culture (present address: Department of Biology, Faculty of in the central plains of Thailand in the 1970s. Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Farmers either separated their rice and fish Canada N21 3G1); John Sollows, CUSO cooperant operations or stopped raising fish. Moreover, (Fisheries), Ubon, (present address: Box 1080, RR2, Yarmouth, N.S., Canada BbA 4A6); Niran Thongpan, the Centre for Rice-Fish Culture Research, agronomist, Field Crop Research Centre, Ubon established in 1968 to develop appropriate Ratchathani 34000, Thailand. technologies, was closed in 1974 (Fedoruk and Lilaphatra 1985). 355 Ai"s( f} MacKay et al. Part 7 Recent research in rice-fish culture has 1983, King and Pimm 1983, and Margalef concentrated on developing techniques to in- and Gutierrez 1983 for examples of recent tegrate fish back into rice production. These arguments.) management techniques involve minimizing the harmful effects of fertilizer and pesticides In agricultural systems, the common dog- on fish (Dela Cruz 1980; Estores et al. 1980; ma has been that minimal diversity is best. Li 1986; Singh et al. 1980). Simple systems are easier to manage and yield a higher food and economic return to human In northeast Thailand, rice-fish produc- societies. Recent problems of diseases and tion is now increasing. Reports from various pests, market instability, and environmental rural development workers indicate a rapid degradation related to these simple systems expansion of the fish production in rice pad- indicate that monocultural agricultural sys- dies. What is unique about this development tems are not stable, but instead are main- is that it is occurring spontaneously among tained by large inputs of energy and materi- farmers. Mixed rice-fish culture is not being als. pushed by any development program but is being aided by a number of government and There is increased interest in stability and nongovernment development organizations. sustainability of agricultural systems (Douglas The causes of the expansion are not com- 1984a). However, sustainability when applied pletely known although some are discussed in to agriculture has many meanings. Douglas this paper. (1984b) identified three schools of thought related to agricultural sustainability: food Since 1984, the Farming Systems self-sufficiency, stewardship, and community. Research Institute, Department of Agricul- While Altieri et al. (1984) have listed the ture, Thailand, and CUSO fisheries cooperants desirable elements of sustainable agriculture have been conducting on-farm research with (conserving renewable resources, adapting rice-fish farmers in northeast Thailand. This crops and associated components to the en- research is designed to test the hypothesis that vironment, and achieving and maintaining re- introducing fish into farming systems of this latively high but sustainable, levels of pro- region will increase diversity, resulting in ductivity), there has been little effort to quan- greater stability and sustainability, both eco- tify these elements. Stability is used in plant logically and economically. breeding as a measure of cultivar variability over location and time, but stability is not Theoretical Concepts of Ecosystem Stability normally used in agriculture as a systems pro- perty. One of the more popular themes of ecosystem theory is the relationship between Conway (1985) identifies four systems species diversity and system stability (Odum properties that are useful in defining 1971). In its basic form, this theory suggests agroecosystems: that simple systems with few species are less 1. Productivity is the net increment in valued stable than more complex systems with a product per unit of input, and is common- greater number of species. However, this ly measured as annual yield, net income, theory has generated considerable argument or gross margin. over. (1) the methods of measuring diversity, 2. Stability is the degree to which produc- (2) the unit to measure (e.g., tropic level, re- tivity remains constant in spite of normal, lated taxa, guilds, etc.), and (3) the mechan- small-scale fluctuations in environmental isms which lead to stability. The most recent variables; it is most conveniently measured consensus appears to be that increased diver- by the reciprocal of the coefficient of sity does not necessarily produce stability. It variation in productivity. is, however, the connections or linkages between species that are more important for 3. Sustainability can be defined as the ability system stability. (See Connell and Sousa of a system to maintain its productivity when subject to stress or perturbation. A 356 Part 7 MacKay et al. stress is here defined as a regular, some- FS approach initially involves a site descrip- times continuous, relatively small and tion obtained with formal or informal survey predictable disturbance. A perturbation, techniques to determine relevant background by contrast, is an irregular, infrequent, re- information on agronomic, economic, and so- latively large and unpredictable distur- cial aspects of the farm studied. This is fol- bance. Unfortunately, measurement is lowed by on-farm experiments which are difficult and can often only be done re- designed using the results of the site descrip- trospectively. Lack of sustainability may tion and in close collaboration with farmers. be indicated by declining productivity but, The experiments are monitored and data on equally as experience suggests, collapse relevant biological, economic and social may come suddenly and without warning. parameters are collected. 4. Equitability is a measure of how evenly the products of the agroecosystems are distri- This research has been carried out in buted among its human beneficiaries. The close cooperation with farmers in northeast more equitable the system the more evenly Thailand at two sites, Sakon Nakhon and are the agricultural products, the food or Ubon Ratchathani (Figure 2). At both sites, the income or the resources, shared among irrigated and rain-fed farms were studied. the population of the farm, village, region The fish introduced by farmers into paddies or nation. It can be represented by a sta- were common carp (Cyprinus carpio) at both tistical distribution or by a measure such sites, tilapia (Sarotherodon nilotica) at Sakon as the Gini coefficient. Nakhon, a hybrid of S. niloticus and S. mos- sambica at Ubon, and silver barb (Puntius These properties are illustrated