Aquacultural Engineering 5 (1986) 287-300

Constraints to Polyculture
John E. Bardach Environmentand PolicyInstitute.East-WestCenter,Honolulu,Hawaii,USA

ABSTRACT Patterns of rearing several compatible aquatic food species together (polyculture) in fresh, brackish and salt water are discussed. Emphasis is on technologies that seize on compatibilities of the organisms for spatial and~or temporal cohabitation and on adaptation to different markets. In.fresh water, use of avian or mammalian stock is inchMed. Constraints discussed comprise water quality and quantity as well as some aspects of technical infrastructure. Also, present land and water management conditions in tropical Asia whence most examples are taken, except for Japan, suggest that best gains can be made not by creating new installations but by upgrading existing ones through large scale establishment of hatcheries and through the improvement of management skills.

INTRODUCTION Between 1976 and 1981 the tonnage produced by animal aquaculture increased by nearly 30%. If seaweed aquaculture were included this figure would rise to 40%. In contrast capture fisheries production for human consumption only rose by circa 5% (Table 1). These trends continue, with gains in aquaculture outstripping those in fisheries. There are many variants of aquaculture pursued in fresh, brackish and salt water, at many levels of intensity. It is the aquatic animal husbandry of the semi-intensive kind, prominently using techniques of polyculture, which offers the most substantial promise. Some of the constraints to its development will be examined here. In some kinds of aquaculture the water serves merely as support for the animals that are grown in it, while in others various biological pro287 Aquacultural Engineering 0144-8609/86/S03.50-- Elsevier Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1986. Printedin Great Britain

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J. E. Bardach
TABLE 1

Five Year Comparison of Production and Growth of Fisheries and Aquaculture"

1976 1981 % Gain

Fisheries (edible products) Aquaculture (Fish, crustaceans and mollusks for human consumption) Algae included

50-1 5-05 6.2

52.6 6.51 8.7

4.9 28-9 40.3

"Based on FAO ( 1976-81), FAO (1976), and Pillay(in press).

cesses based on physical and chemical properties of the medium are steered to be an integral part of the production process. The first kind is feedlot aquaculture which benefits substantially from the most copious possible water supply. T h e cheaper this supply, the more it can be simply thrown away after serving as support, as conveyor of oxygen and as a continuous flow 'flush-toilet', carrying away metabolic wastes. Snake River rainbow trout culture and net culture of several species of marine fish are good examples. W h e n water or land costs rise, or when water exchange poses technical problems, various engineering solutions are sought to enhance water quality; they can range from stirring to the injection of oxygen or even recycling with complex filters. A recent example would be the use of wind generators to obtain oxygen from the dissociation of water, with the resulting hydrogen reducing the power needs for oxygenation. Other devices are sensor probes for dissolved oxygen and nozzles to supply the gas in conjunction with computerized feeding devices for catfish. All these are challenges to engineering skills and ingenuity and they may be economical under certain circumstances, but they also pose the question of how to attain optimal use of what threatens to be an increasingly scarce resource, namely clean water. Feedlot monoculture has produced great quantities of animal flesh per unit holding space and its tools are largely of the engineering kind while its limitations and constraints have been largely economic. The other avenue to aquaculture, that of steering biological processes in the water to furnish all or most of the sustenance of the cultivars and also supplying respectable harvests per unit area or volume, has been

Constraints to polyculture

2S9

through polyculture. Most simply put, polyculture attempts to rear together a number of species that are compatible with one another and that make use of various feeding levels and niches, usually in a pond; production may be enhanced by extraneous feeding. Its tools, aside from some mechanical or engineering devices, are largely eco-technical or related to the cultivars themselves and the food organisms with which they share their growing spaces. In other words, the quest is to attain a maximum of the economically usable over the ecologically necessary biomass. Such management techniques will have to be based on understanding the relations of the metabolism of all levels in the foodchain, prominently including that of the bottom (or mud) water interface, and of course on attention to water quality. To do this it will be necessary to retain or secure small diurnal fluctuations in 02 levels through balancing photosynthesis and respiration by avoiding stratification and extending the depth of the photic zone. It also means balancing prominent carbon and nitrogen sources, mainly through enhancing their recycling or re-use. Unfortunately, knowledge of many of these processes still eludes us and polyculture practices therefore mostly tend to be those of a trade or craft rather than being based on well established applied science methods. In the following pages I will examine examples of polyculture with a view to reducing uncertainties and/or enhancing reliability of polyculture management methods. Since aquaculture is a business, I would also deal with some economic aspects of polyculture; all these will, of course, relate to constraints of one sort or another.

POLYCULTURE PATTERNS The first example of these patterns is from India (Tables 2 and 3). In this system Indian carp were grown together with Chinese carp, with nutrient inputs being provided by ducks, partly grown on the ponds, and by plants, grown on the berms and fed to the grass carp (Jhingran and Sharma, 1980). Note that the fertilizer input by the birds is not accounted for but that the bird operation broke even (Table 3). Six species were grown in an attempt to fill as many feeding niches as possible, with emphasis on fish that feed in the water column. Among these mrigal and rohu are more appreciated than the rest, but they were all given equal weight in the accounting since they were sold

TABLE 2 Yields of Fish from an Integrated Farming Experiment at the Anjana Fish Farm, Krishnagar, West Bengal, India, Using a 1.,18 ha Ptmd Stocked With a ~Ik)tal of 9400 Fish (6.~41 h a - Harvested After 9- and 12-month Growth Periods (fi)r Calla alone, a second stocking v,,as made after the 9-nlOllth harvest)"

I,.J

Species t'

Composition of stock (%)

Growth period O.onth#

Average initial weight

Average weight at harvest

Total weight at harvest

Survival (%)

COnlHb.lion to IOta~ yiehl

(~
10 18 28 15
10 5

('g)
96'3 90'6
72"6

(,~

(%)
19"2 13' I
15"4

C a l l a (PI. M a c r o Vcg. Surf.)'

43 28 23 5

First stocking Second stocking Rolm'

(Column I Iv) Mrigal'

(BottOlll & l lV)

9 3 9 12 9 12 9 12 12 12
. . .

904 498 413 633 495 513 1643 1920 1720 2611 161-201/ 163.11111 Total yield

801-150 429"31111 346'500 488"650 3115"81111 677"300 632"111111 1300"3011 1092-000

94"2
76.8

311"2
17.1

e~ 2~

19
.

53.1
--

2-5 2'5 6397"31111 kg14265"1111 kg ha 1)

Silver c a r p ' (Column HV) Grass c a r p ' (Macro Veg.) Commoll carp' (Bottom Onmiv. Miscclhmcous

"Based on Jhingran and Sharnm (19NO). l, Roughly in order of market preference. ' Notations in parentheses refer to feeding types and modes. PI. = Plankton; Macro Veg. = Macro Vegetation; Surf = Surface;

Cohmm = Water ('olumn;

IIv = 1Icrbivorc; Onmiv. = Omnivore.

Constraints to polyculmre

291

to a government distribution scheme that did not differentiate between the values of the different species. Under different conditions of fish polyculture, such as in China, stocking is adjusted to account for market preferences; near Hong Kong bighead carp are favored over silver carp though fewer of the former can be grown in equivalent ponds. Also, where grass carp are favored, as they are in the Yangtse Delta, the pig manure which is used as fertilizer is placed on the banks and manure may or may not also be added to the ponds. This produces more grass carp than silver carp, a result that is of interest in view of the development of China's free food markets. Grow-out time is nine months to one year, since a fish for the market must weigh several hundred grams. Altogether there may be as many as nine species in Chinese polyculture, and the schemes are all geared to maximize nutrient recycling and use manure and plant matter. Ten tonnes ha- ~ are not rare and thirteen have been achieved (Zweig, 1984). As for the other inputs, the 'Mahua' cake (Table 3) serves for sanitation of the pond bottom from which fertile mud is also removed and used as compost, after harvest; no extraneous feed is purchased. Labor also includes aeration; the devices are not described, nor is the schedule of the operation. Remembering the craft aspects of polyculture management, we should note, however, that Chinese polyculturists use various signs and signals to activate stirring: gulping is, of course, already a distress sign for which one hardly waits, but orientation of the fish with regard to the direction of the wind or their reluctance to sound when frightened are earlier signals of oxygen lack; when these are observed, the ponds are stirred or sprayed (Zweig, 1984). These polyculture examples were taken from nations where labor is relatively cheap and the state of technical infrastructure might mitigate against the use of much machinery or automation. Also, pond lay-out is hardly standardized and often the farms are small enough for family labor to win out over mechanical devices which save manual work. Questions nevertheless exist about the best uses of pond ecology and about the design and use of some mechanical devices. The next example is from pond operations of Aquatic Farms Ltd in Oahu, Hawaii, where shrimp are grown as the primary crop together with tilapia and oysters. In contrast to growing only fish, polyculture with crustaceans obviously precludes having piscine users of the

I,.J

TABLE
I,,J

Input Costs and Returns for a Year's Production of Fish, Duck Eggs and Ducks Sold for Meat From an Integrated Farming Experiment at the Ahjana Fish Farm, Krishnagar, West Bengal, India Using a 1"48 ha Pond Stocked at 6340 Fish h a -

(usS 1.oo =
Rs

8.00)

A. Fish
Rate Ira -I Quantity Unit cost or value 7oral cost or value

1. I n p u t cm'ts

(Rs)

(Rs)
2432"1)11 111"75 2 5(16'75
11'25

250 ppm 250 kg 6 34(1 I kg

-

64(10 kg 372"5 kg 9 400 1'5 kg

0"38 k g - t 0'30 k g - t -7'51) kg i

Mahua cake (Bassia latifolia) Lime Fingerlings Insecticide (BHC) Netting and other

997-51 2761.54

nlisccllancous costs

Labor (security and fish handling) Pond rental

1.48 ha

1 000'00 h a - t year ~ Total

1 500.00 10 320.80

2. lCeturns

Fish sales

6 3 9 7 kg

5"50 kg -I

35 183"(10

B. l)ucks

1. hq)ul costs

140 1 510 kg
_

Ducklings Poultry feed Medication

approx 9-00 per head 1.00 kg -I --

1272.00 1 510.00 97.00

Depreciation cost of floating duck h o u s e - c o n t r i b u t i o n cost, Rs 2 50(I; lifc expectancy, 5 years 500-00 'Ibtal 3 379.1/0

2. l~,etttrtts
1 835 250 kg (live weight)
0 . 4 0 per egg 10-00 kg- i

Egg sales Ducks for meat q2)tal

734.00 2 500.1111 3 234.1111

5

C. Summary 13699.80 1 369.98 15069.78 38417.00 23347.72

Total operation cost = Rs Interest on working capital at 1 0 % = Rs

Total variable costs

= Rs

"lk~tal returns Net profit Nct profit as a % of total variable costs

= Rs = Rs

= 155%
ta.~

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Z E. Bardach

bottom, whether for feeding or breeding. In consequence, the hybrid male tilapia (crosses of Oreochromis mossambict~s and niloticus) which are using the plankton of the water column are kept in cages for the seven to nine months it takes to grow them from fingerling (circa 10 g) to market sizes (circa 450 g). The cages are very simple constructs of plastic-covered wire mesh; they are arranged in rows and they can be moved from pond to pond when the three times yearly harvest of shrimp has to be undertaken. The shrimp Penetts vannamei are grown to a weight of about 15 g, the smallest acceptable size for the trade, to optimize on the rapid growth phase of juvenile animals. The oysters, reared for a selective half shell trade, are kept in flumes and bathed in pond effluents that pass relatively rapidly over them. Water from the flumes, enriched by oyster pseudofeces, may be re-cycled to various degrees. So much for a description of the pond farming operation, with hatcheries for fish and shrimp not being mentioned. Management requires first a balancing of salinity to around 15%o achieved by mixing water from a freshwater stream with that pumped from a salt water well; in essence, only evaporation is replaced. This salinity level favors phytoplankton growth in which desirable diatoms predominate; it may also present an osmotic optimum, at least for the shrimp. Both fish and shrimp are fed with high protein broiler chicken starter ration at decreasing levels in percentage of body weight; the shrimp, for instance, receive 10% at stocking and 2% before harvest. The ponds also receive doses of urea and phosphoric acid. Feed levels are moderate, compared to feedlot culture, with much reliance on planktonic carbon fixation in which a preponderance of diatoms over green and blue-green algae is desired; Chinese polyculturists also strive for a dominance of diatoms, liking 'fresh brown' water color which indicates such a plankton composition. Diatom preponderance, incidentally, is more difficult to achieve in fresh than in brackish water. Pond performance is ascertained by weekly sampling of the shrimp and feeding is adjusted accordingly. At the time of the trimestral shrimp harvest the ponds are dried and pond bottoms may be raked or rototilled; some material may be discarded after a one year build-up. It was attempted to grow oysters in the pond instead of raising them 'after' the ponds, but apart from inconvenience of handling it appears that oysters fare better when water with their plankton food in it is passed over them, as it is in their prime natural habitats, the tidal

Constraints to polyculture

295

estuaries. (Depending on the provenience and quality of the water before it reaches the farm, oysters which are to be eaten raw may present health problems.) Four to five or even more tonnes of shrimp and several hundred kilograms of tilapia and of oysters can be produced in such a sequential, as opposed to simultaneous, polyculture, with the amounts of the secondary crops of fish and molusks to be reared depending on market conditions. The largest single expense in the system is for labor, followed by the costs of crustacean post larvae, for miscellaneous inputs, including energy for pumping, and for feed. Note that feeding costs amount only to about 10% of the running expenses, compared to 40% or more seen in intensive shrimp culture as practiced in Taiwan or Japan. But note also that the operation here, as in China, is managed by persons attuned to observing and acting upon changes in pond ecology and water quality. This may include use of some mechanical devices when it is deemed necessary to break up the shallow thermocline which may form on hot days and/or to provide some aeration. Managers and operators master not only skills of aquaculture but they are trained, even at several levels of management, to understand broader aspects of aquatic ecology and to speculate about physical, chemical and biological cause and effect relationships, and draw conclusions from them for various management tasks. Yet another variant of polyculture can be practiced in the ocean proper. Coral reef areas and subtidal regions of rocky shores can be subjected to semi-intensive management with the result of enhancing yields of desirable species. This takes place in full sea water, the most prevalent water environment we have and one which we must eventually manage more actively. There are research examples of the culling of species, protecting of others, seeding of some, in order to greatly increase economic returns from any one stretch of marine grounds, while recognizing the open system nature of the environment. A good conceptual beginning has been made in this regard with protected tracts for reef-farming in the tropical Pacific (Doty, 1981; Table 4) and with sea bream management in Kyushu, Japan, where hatcheries replenish stocks and juveniles are trained to certain feeding times and places and fish shelters (based on empirical research) are supplied on a large scale. Not only fish but also algae and mollusks can be geared into such ranching and marine gardening schemes, especially as we learn more about the key interactions of cultivars with the rest of the

296

J. E. Bardach
TABLE 4

Thirty-five Commonly Marketable Marine Wild Crops That Appear to be Farmable in the Reef or Mangal Environment on a Diversified Reef Farm (quite clearly no one site would be suitable for all in this list and many more organisms could be added)"
Arthropods Coelenterates Echinoderms

Mangrove crabs Penaeid shrimps

Acroporoid corals Alcyonarian corals Precious corals Sea fans Black corals
Seaweeds Caulerpa Digenia Eucheurna Gracilaria Halymenia Hormophysa Monostroma Sargassum Turbinaria

Sea urchins Starfishes Trepang holothurians

Mollusks Anadara Cardium

Vertebrates

Mussels Other clams Oysters Pearl oysters Tridacnids

Aquarium species Dragons/lizards Fishes Groupers

Kyphosus

Sea horses Sea snakes Siganids Turtles

"Based on Doty(1981). flora and fauna a r o u n d them. Proper attention to externalities is as necessary here as it is in fresh and brackish water ponds and management, extending over many kilometers of coastline, rests on larger scale cooperation than is customary in fisheries and for that matter in aquaculture (Ocean Research Institute, 1984; Table 5). Eventually yields of 2 - 4 million tonnes ( M M T / are anticipated from this kind of marine polyculture along the coasts of Japan. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION As these examples point to possibilities of upgrading of aquaculture practices they invite broad questions of site and water availability. In the case of the fresh water system, former relatively pristine estuaries and seasonally inundated areas of the world's larger river systems which supplied large fish tonnage from wild harvests are virtually

Constraints to polyculture
TABLE 5

297

Exploration of Methods for Enhancing the Aquatic Potential of Shijiki Bay and Other Locations in Western Kyushu ,iBased on Ocean Research Institute, 1984). ,4. Comprehensive &Fundamental Studies of the Shifiki Bay Cornmuni~' Laying Stress on the Ecolo~' of Red Sea Bream Larvae Goals: Open clean bay High primary production Efficient turnover of materials in food chain around fish shelters on sea bottom Healthy, fertile nursery ground Flexible structure of community Carrying capacity to be fully exploited Studies in Progress: Life history and production of plankton and benthos Energy flow through the shelter food chain Carrying capacity of red sea bream, abalone and sea urchin Turnover process of detritus around sea bottom Community structure of beach laying stress on flounder Water exchange process Production of sea weed and sea grass Mechanisms of annual fluctuations of O-age red sea bream density Role of reef for biological production B. ~.\rploration Projects in Marine Culture and Management Marine ranching project (red sea bream, flounder, abalone, sea urchin, etc.) Biomass project (sea weed and grass) Arrange and exploitation of coast fishing ground project (artificial reef, enhancing nursery ground) Collaborating Organizations Fisherman's Union of Shijiki Aquaculture Research Laborator2, .' of Nagasaki Far Seas Fisheries Research Laboratory Tohoku Reg. Fisheries Research Laboratory Nagasaki University Faculty of Education Nagasaki University Faculty of Fisheries Kyoto University Faculty of Agriculture Ocean Research Institute of Tokyo University

298

J. E. Bardach

gone; irrigation agriculture and the use of pesticides and fertilizer have changed the complexion of the environment in lowland tropical reaches, including the diminution of wild stock to supply seed for pond operations. Hence there need to be sufficient hatcheries to supply the fry and sufficient indigenous knowledge to rear them. Where the fish to be stocked came from natural waters such knowledge is usually lacking. Also needed is a more ecologically sound concern for water quality for aquaculture, as it can be affected by agricultural, domestic and industrial pollution. Examples are legion in Asia, where such externalities have constrained the upgrading from extensive to semi-intensive polyculture. Often the crux of the matter is lack of communication among agencies and lack of means to bring about necessary changes that are acceptable from the vantage point of reasonable trade-offs. The communication and cooperation shown in the Japanese coastal polyculture mentioned earlier is an exception rather than the rule. Water availability, and also to a great extent water quality, are not so serious for brackish water polyculture; after all there are in Southeast Asia alone around 3.7 million hectares of mangrove swamps out of which one could carve large farms (Knox and Miyabara, 1984). Such a superficial and simplistic statement has misled politicians and international agencies, since it does not consider that a large percentage of these areas must be ruled out for aquaculture, in part because of access and infrastructure deficiencies, but more importantly because they are the basis for the preservation of wild stocks on which shrimp and important finfish capture fisheries rely. But even where conditions are favorable for transformation of mangrove areas into ponds there is still inadequate knowledge of how to do this in an ecologically sound manner; pertinent research is therefore desirable. However, there are, especially in tropical Asia, many tens of thousands of hectares of brackish water ponds with their canals that now produce low yields of shrimp and fish. These could be upgraded for less money than it would take to build new ones; hatcheries could be established to service them, feedmills could be challenged to furnish affordable feeds, and management methods could be modernized. A several-fold increase in animal protein production country- or regionwide would result, if, in addition, credit schemes could be instituted that assure benefits to farmers rather than to agents, and if training and extension innovations could be set up that lead to wide introduc-

Constraints to polycu#ure

299

tion of the best presently known polycultural practices. Attention to these exigencies by funding and appropriate government agencies would raise aquaculture yields faster than starting new large scale aquaculture developments and it would do so in a socially highly acceptable manner; the opening of large new tracts may still be pursued, but mostly with a view to a more distant future. It gives me satisfaction indeed that what I said here has also been the tenet, in part, of the inaugural address of the new president of the World Mariculture Society, Dr Edward Scura. With him I draw attention to broadly applicable constraints to polyculture that lie in the lack of attention to social, ecological and economic systems thinking when it comes to aquaculture planning on a national scale. Leaving the macro- and going to meso- and more micro-considerations, while still drawing on implications of the examples Dven earlier, it appears that upgrading of polyculture on the farm level requires both a more thorough information base and managers and operators who know not only what to do but also why they would perform such measures. This is easier said than done because several aspects of pond systems relations are still only partly known. Patterns of materials flows such as may be elucidated by using labeled carbon and labeled nitrogen are cases in point, as is algal, especially diatom, ecology. Also there is in many instances insufficient relation between research and practice, potentially leading to deficiencies in concept and oi-ganization of training and extension practices. On the socio-economic 'front', upgrading the sizes of holdings would influence technical as well as credit measures. The relation of these inputs to farm structure and function has hardly been studied. In fact in the nations where upgrading measures would pay off there are few experts who could address themselves to such questions, and expatriates with the requisite skills all too often lack local knowledge and insight. I believe that attention to this aspect of improving polyculture in various nations is as, if not more, important than attention to the technical side.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I gratefully acknowledge inputs from discussions with Dr R. Zweig, Dr E. Scura, Dr R. McLarney, Professor M. Dory and Mr A. M. Kuljis.

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J.E. Bardach
REFERENCES

Doty, M. ( 1981 ). The Diversified Farming of Coral Reefs. University of Hawaii H.L. Lyons Arboretum Lecture No. II, University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii, 29 pp. FAO (1976-81). Fisheries Statistics, FAO Yearbooks of Fishery Statistics, Catches and Landings. FAO (1976). Fisheries Report 188, Report of the FAO Technical Conference on Aquaculture, Kyoto, Japan, 26 May-2 June 1976. Jhingran, V. G. & Sharma, B. K. (1980). Integrated livestock-fish farming in India, In: Integrated Agrictdture-Aq,Laculmre Farming Systems, ICL~ RM Conference Proceedings No. 4, eds R. S. V. Pullin & Z. H. Shehadeh, Manila. pp. 135-42. Knox, G. A. & Miyabara, T. (1984). Coastal Zone Resource Development and Conservation in Southeast Asia. Doc. No. ISBN 92-3-102250-4, UNESCO/Jakarta, 182 pp. Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo (1984). Exploration of methods for enhancing the aquatic potential of Shijiki Bay. Mimeo, 6 pp. Pillay, T. V. R. (in press). Proc. Worm Aquaculture Conf., Venice, 1981. Zweig, R. D. (1984). China's prolific fishponds. CERES 100, FAO, Rome, pp. 22-6.