| Popis: |
An experiment was conducted between August and November, 2008 at Wuya-Bida to determine the profitability of integrating fish culture into rice farming. Two treatments (mono-rice and rice-fish) in triplicate were used. The area of each plot was 144 m2 and the mono-rice plots consisted of only rice farming while the rice-fish plots had rice farming incorporated with the raising of Oreochromis niloticus and Clarias gariepinus fingerlings. The fish were fed with compounded feed and wheat offal and at the end of the experimental period of 60 days, O. niloticus fingerlings had a mean weight gain of 47.60 ~c1.86 g in the rice-fish plots while C. gariepinus fingerlings had a mean weight gain of 110.80 ~c2.92 g. C. gariepinus fingerlings performed better than O. niloticus fingerlings. Values for physico-chemical parameters showed that both pH and dissolved oxygen were outside the favourable limits (pH, 6.5-9; DO, > 5 mg/lit) recommended for warm water aquaculture in the rice-fish plots. Cost-benefit analysis showed that the integration of fish into the rice system confers substantial profitability on the system going from the production, total and net income differences between mono-rice and rice-fish plots. However, cost-benefit ratio of the mono-rice plots was slightly better than that of the rice-fish plots. |
