Fish-based intensive integrated farming system for resource recycling, enhanced productivity and livelihood improvement in the lowlands of the middle Indo-Gangetic plains

Integrated farming systems (IFSs) enhance economic yield per unit area and time through intensification, diversification and integration of location-specific components while promoting resource recycling and reducing dependency on external inputs. This approach is particularly effective for eastern India, especially in wetlands, where underutilised pond dykes can be efficiently utilised for growing vegetables, fruits integrating with poultry or duckery, providing significant benefits in production, income, nutrition and employment opportunities to farm families. In this study, components like field crops, vegetables, fruits, mixed carp culture, poultry and duckery were integrated at the main research farm of ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna, India. The results were highly encouraging, showing significant improvements in production and income compared to the conventional rice-wheat and sole fish production systems. Integration of fish, poultry, duck with sequential vegetable and fruit production on pond dykes resulted in 333.14% higher relative production efficiency and higher daily income (₹443 day-1) compared to rice-wheat and sole fish production system (₹95.1 day-1). This model also generated 300% more employment opportunities over rice-wheat and sole fish production system. In addition to these benefits, it helped to contribute an ample amount of nutrients (N:P:K, 169.9:91.5: 81.9 kg per acre, respectively) to the farm soil, significantly reducing the reliance on chemical fertilisers. The present IFS model (rice-wheat and fish + poultry/duckery on pond dykes) proved to be highly productive, remunerative which can be easily adopted by small and marginal farmers in the middle Indo-Gangetic plains (MIGP). Keywords: Economics, Integrated fish farming, Livelihood, Poultry fish and duck rearing, Pond dyke, Intensification, Resource recycling