Integrating fish with rice increases income by about 30–40% the same increase is obtained by integrating fish with livestock. In the latter, however, the contribution of fish to net income may be higher than 50%.
Table 18:
Cage culture, the most intensive farming system, needs a high level of cash flow and operation costs consist mainly of feed and secondarily of fry. This fish culture system leads to the lowest net profit per kg of fish produced. Hence it requires larger production units for a given global net income for the fish farmer.
In West Africa, tilapia cage culture in Niger show s the same economic trends as analyzed for the same culture system in the Philippines in terms of production costs.
Table 19.
Financial analysis for a 20-m3-tilapia culture-floating cage in Niger (West Africa) as of 1995 (in FCFA, 1 US$ # 600 FCFA).
In Cote d’Ivoire a comparative analysis of various pond fish farming systems puts into evidence that the most intensive level of pond management, using a balance diet, does not lead to the highest financial efficiency.
Table 20.
Economic efficiency ratios for different fish culture models developed in Cote d’Ivoire (West Africa) (in FCFA, 1 US$ # 600 FCFA).
This analysis shows also the advantage of using a combination of manure with supplementary low cost feeding (rice bran) in the case of M3 model. If fish culture has to be compared to other agricultural activities in terms of economic efficiency, the crops that are competing with fish culture for land and water use are essentially irrigated rice, maize and vegetable.
Comparison of the monetary products indicates that performing fish culture models such as developed in Cote d’Ivoire, make a more efficient use of land than irrigated rice: 13.600– 22.000 FCFA.100m-2.year-1 for fish culture against 1600–5600 FCFA. 100m-2.year-1 for irrigated rice.
In terms of the efficient use of family labor, monosex tilapia culture models compare favorably with food crops: 2500–3900 FCFA.day-1 for fish culture, 460-2000 FCFA.day-1 for irrigated rice and 670–1100 FCFA.day-1 for yam culture.
In addition, fish farming gives higher economic efficiency rates than generally obtained for other categories of agricultural projects (10–20%). Moreover, the rates of return of capital of efficient pond fish farming observed in Africa, ranging from 43 to 52% are totally comparable with those recorded in the Philippines (48–63%).
Authors:
Lionel Dabbadie and Jerome Lazard
