A model where rice and fish are reared in the same fields could be replicated in Mwea, assisting farmers to increase income from their fields.
The rice-fish farming is popular in some Asian countries where rice is grown like Indonesia. It involves farmers introducing fish into their rice fields.
This technique is good for both the fish and the rice. Safely hidden from birds, the fish thrive in the dense rice plants, while they in turn provide a source of fertiliser with their droppings, eat insect pests and help to circulate oxygen around the rice field. Farmers say keeping fish in rice fields can increase rice yields by up to 10 percent, plus they have the additional supplies of fish.
In the strictest sense rice-fish farming means the growing of rice and fish together in the
same field at the same time. However, it is also taken to include the growing of rice and fish serially one after another within the same field or the growing of rice and fish simultaneously, side by side in separate compartments, using the same water.
