Present status and economic benefit of integrated fish farming system in Noakhali region, Bangladesh

The present study investigated to know the current status and assessment of the economic benefit of twenty-five integrated fish farms in Noakhali region of Bangladesh. Qualitative and quantitative research data were collected between November 2018 to July 2019 through farm visit, focus group discussion and questionnaire interview. This total farming system covers a total 111.27 hectares of landmass where 78.51 hectares were used for fish production and 32.76 hectares for other production. Six major categories of integration were found, namely fish-poultry-livestock-horticulture, fish-poultry-horticulture, fish-livestockhorticulture, fish-horticulture, fish-poultry and fish-livestock integration. There are 21 fish species, 4 types of reared poultry and 3 types of reared livestock and a variety of fruits and vegetables were cultivated throughout the year. An increasing trend of integration was found in the study area. Total fish production from those 25 integrated farms was 326.4 tons/year, and the production value was BDT 43.37M approximately. Average production of fish, horticulture and poultry were 4.54, 13.96 and 1201.79 tons/ha/year. Total investment in 25 different integrated fish farms was about BDT 185.63M while total return was about BDT 227.85M. The benefit of an integrated farming system was BDT 0.38 M/ha/year. The wastes from livestock and poultry directly or indirectly used as fertilizer in the pond and horticulture farming system. A few farms convert this bio-waste as electrical energy through biogas plants to meet up farm’s electricity demand. With the help of proper guideline, technical and financial support the production of these integration systems could be boosted up. It will play a remarkable positive impact on the total economy of the country.


Introduction
Agriculture in Bangladesh comprises vegetation, farm animals, and fisheries. It presents food, feed, fiber, and gasoline to its citizens and animals, and plays a crucial position in the financial development of Bangladesh. Almost 60% of farmers own not more than 0.8 ha farm that is not enough space for the diversification of farming activities in Bangladesh (FAO, 2019). However, integrated fish farming approach with limited available space have the potential to diversified farming activities. Consequently, farmers can have more food production, nutrition and better household income with possible land utilization (Alam et al., 2009). People in Bangladesh have approximately 47-48 million animals, including cattle, buffaloes, sheep, and goat. Besides, chickens and ducks have been taken together 90 million (FAO, 2019). Those animals appear to produce a significant amount of excreta. These excreta have often been considered as waste products that can cause environmental pollution. In order to reduce such pollution, animals' excreta can be utilized as fertilizer instead of other fertilizers or artificial feed through the integrated fish farming system in a pond (Bekibele et al., 2007). This way, fish production has been increased up to 4-5 t/ha/year (FAO, 2019). In integrated fish farming, fish production is considered to be the main source of profit. Besides, crops, poultry, vegetables, livestock are the additional source of income (Nishan et al., 2015). As a whole, integrated farming system includes enhancing production by integration of all components in a farm without external inputs. For example, crop may serve as feed for livestock (duck or poultry), manure of a livestock may serve as manure for the crop. Some livestock such as ducks appear to be helpful for controlling weeds by eating them. Thus, the integrated farming system is a kind of recycling process in which resources are well-utilized without being wasted (Bekibele et al., 2007). However, most farmers in Bangladesh are subsistence farmer. They tend to get cashback from the farm investment. While single crop culture entrepreneurs are at risk and facing uncertainty due to inconsistent income and career opportunity to farmers, it is necessary to introduce a favourable integrated fish farming system for obtaining economic benefits and sustainable food production (Al Mamun and Debi, 2012). Therefore, our study attempted to gain information regarding the present status and financial benefit of integrated fish farming system in Noakhali, Bangladesh.

Materials and Methods
We collected both qualitative and quantitative data from the farm survey in Noakhali (Figure 1). For collecting data, we followed a focus group discussion and questionnaire interview for about eight months (November 2018 to July 2019). After data collection, data were organized and analyzed by MS Excel. Finally, we produced a graph for a clear understanding of the cost-benefit of integrated fish farms.

Status of integration system
There are six major categories of integration practiced in the study areas namely Fish-poultry-livestockhorticulture (F-P-L-H), Fish-poultry-horticulture (F-P-H), Fish-livestock-horticulture (F-L-H), Fish-horticulture (F-H), Fish-poultry (F-P) and Fish-livestock (F-L). We found that Fish-poultry farming integration practice was highest (36%) and Fish-horticulture farming integration occupied the lowest (only 4%). Out of the surveyed 25 farms, 19 farms were single ownership, and the remaining 6 farms were multiple ownership ( Table 1). The total farms' size was 111.27 hectares, where the fish farming area was 78.51 hectares including 210 grow-out ponds and 71 nursery ponds.

Available fish species cultured in the integrated studied farms
During the survey, 21 species were found cultured in studied farms pond.

Trends of integration
According to the current research work, all the integrated farms were established between 2000 to 2017. Each year new farms were involved in the integrated farming business. An Increasing trend of Integrated farming business was observed during the study period ( Figure 2).

Discussion
Our results show that six major categories of integration available in the current study area, including Fishpoultry-livestock-horticulture, Fish-poultry-horticulture, Fish-livestock-horticulture, Fish-horticulture, Fishpoultry and Fish-livestock. Our study revealed that most of the farms practiced fish-poultry in their farms which is evidenced by other studies conducted in Mymensingh (Uddin et al., 2015). Similarly, fish cum poultry culture