Integrated farming in Asia is either considered an eco-friendly good that should be preserved for environmental reasons or a poor practice that will soon be superseded by industrial aquaculture. This report finds that most livestock-fish integration is sound business conducted by entrepreneurs accessing urban markets where the price of fish is relatively low. It can be used as part of a strategy to reduce environmental impacts of intensive livestock production and to produce low-cost food. Farmers have proved adept at both developing their systems to meet their own needs and diversifying the role of ponds, fish and livestock within their complex livelihoods.
This publication contains background documents and papers presented at a workshop on integrated irrigation aquaculture (IIA), held in Mali in November 2003, as well as the findings of FAO expert missions on IIA in the West Africa region. The rationale for IIA development lies in its potential to increase productivity of scarce freshwater resources and to reduce pressure on natural resources, issues of particular important in the drought-prone countries of West Africa.
This document is an edited and slightly revised version of a previously published integrated agriculture-aquaculture (IAA) technology information kit. It contains 38 contributions in seven sections, outlining the basic issues and characteristics of IAA systems and making generous use of pictorial drawings and visual representations.
Sustainable agriculture is a rapidly growing field aiming at producing food and energy in a sustainable way for our children. This discipline addresses current issues such as climate change, increasing food and fuel prices, starvation, obesity, water pollution, soil erosion, fertility loss, pest control and biodiversity depletion. Novel solutions are proposed based on integrated knowledge from agronomy, soil science, molecular biology, chemistry, toxicology, ecology, economy, philosophy and social sciences. As actual society issues are now intertwined, sustainable agriculture will bring solutions to build a safer world. This book series analyzes current agricultural issues and proposes alternative solutions, consequently helping all scientists, decision-makers, professors, farmers and politicians wishing to build safe agriculture, energy and food systems for future generations.
This text details the plant-assisted remediation method, “phytoremediation”, which involves the interaction of plant roots and associated rhizospheric microorganisms for the remediation of soil contaminated with high levels of metals, pesticides, solvents, radionuclides, explosives, crude oil, organic compounds and various other contaminants. Many chapters highlight and compare the efficiency and economic advantages of phytoremediation to currently practiced soil and water treatment practices. Volume 5 of Phytoremediation: Management of Environmental Contaminants provides the capstone of the series. Taken together, the five volumes provide a broad–based global synopsis of the current applications of phytoremediation using plants and the microbial communities associated with their roots to decontaminate terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
Ponds are a primary production system to a wide variety of freshwater fish species. Each species have specific and unique nutrient needs and successful pond fertilization is critical to a successful aquaculture enterprise. Aquaculture Pond Fertilization: Impacts of Nutrient Input on Production provides state-of-the-art information for successful fertilization strategies for a broad range of pond-raised species. Aquaculture Pond Fertilization attempts to rectify the seemingly contradictory nutrient recommendations by clearly defining the goals of specific types of aquaculture. Chapters are divided into three sections: The first reviews basic concepts in fertilization applicable to all pond-based production. The second looks at specific nutrient management approaches. The third and final section of chapters looks specifically at key freshwater pond species ranging from tilapia to perch and discusses specific fertilization needs for the successful rearing of these in-demand fish. Looking across species with chapters contributed by leaders in the field Aquaculture Pond Fertilization provides succinct single-volume coverage of an oft-neglected, but vitally important topic in aquaculture production.
Nutrient-balance assessments are valuable tools for delineating the consequences of farming on soil fertility. Various approaches and methods for different situations have been used in the past. This bulletin presents a state-of-the-art review of nutrient balance studies. It brings out the evolution of the approaches and methods, provides for comparisons among them, features the improvements made, and highlights remaining issues. This analysis will be useful in further development of the assessment methodologies as reliable tools for devising time-scale soil fertility management interventions.
Handbook of Algal Science, Microbiology, Technology and Medicine provides a concise introduction to the science, biology, technology and medical use of algae that is structured on the major research fronts of the last four decades, such as algal structures and properties, algal biomedicine, algal genomics, algal toxicology, and algal bioremediation, algal photosystems, algal ecology, algal bioenergy and biofuels. It also covers algal production for biomedicine, algal biomaterials, and algal medicinal foods within these primary sections. All chapters are authored by the leading researchers in their respective research fields. Our society currently faces insurmountable challenges in the areas of biomedicine and energy in the face of increasing global population and diminishing natural resources as well as the growing environmental and economic concerns, such as global warming, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Algae offer a way to deal with these challenges and concerns for both sustainable and environment friendly bioenergy production and in biomedicine through the development of crucial biotechnology. Provides an essential interdisciplinary introduction and handbook for all the stakeholders engaged in science, technology and medicine of algae Covers the major research streams of the last four decades, ranging from algal structures, to algal biomedicine and algal bioremediation Fills a significant market opening for an interdisciplinary handbook on algal science, technology and medicine
