Letters | Rear fish in a rice paddy? Old ways can future-proof food production
- Readers discuss the urgent need to sustainably intensify farming and agriculture to feed a growing world, a Hong Kong government scheme to reduce food waste, and how to minimise one’s carbon footprint while flying
International research centres in Malaysia and Mexico are producing proteins and carbohydrates from the same plot of land. Many complementarities emerge when agricultural landscapes are managed to produce both these essential macromolecules.
We can see this in traditional wheat-growing areas of the Nile Delta, which are confronting a growing gap between water demand and supply. Researchers are helping Egyptian wheat producers to more efficiently use water and nutrients by incorporating indoor tilapia production into their operations and using the nutrient-rich effluent to grow fruit trees and vegetables. Integrated aquaculture-agriculture is enabling these producers enhance their productivity and diversify their income streams despite degraded conditions.
In Asia, scientists are quantifying the benefits of different integrated rice-fish production systems and investigating the role of emerging innovations.