Country and location: China: Qingtian county in Zhejiang province

Project title: “Conservation and adaptive management of rice-fish culture in China”

Proponent/requesting agency: Department of International Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture; Center for Natural and Cutural Heritage, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); Government of Qingtian County

Site: Longxian village

Area of GIAHS: 461 ha

Agricultural biodiversity:
Rice paddies (20 native rice varieties -many threatened), home gardens, and livestock / poultry; trees and field hedges; numerous native vegetables and fruits including lotus roots, beans, taro, eggplant, Chinese plum (Prunus simoni), mulberry; 6 native breeds of carp

Associated biodiversity:
5 species of fish, and amphibians and snails in paddies; 7 species of wild vegetables collected in borders of fields; 62 forest species are used (21 as food); 53 medicinal plants; Azolla ssp.

Indicator species:
Wild fish species in rice fields (Latin names to be identified):
Camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora), both wild and planted

Ecosystem functions:

• Integrated use of forest (70% of water catchment) and managed rice-fish interactions for nutrient recycling, pest control and high quality protein production from organic waste material;
• Use of 4 species of Azolla for nitrogen fixation and protein rich fish food;
• Use of trees in field and hedges for pest control (ethno-pesticides or habitats for beneficial insects)

Ethnicity: Han (traditional)

Socio-economic and cultural characteristics:
The major agricultural products in Longxian village are rice, fish and tea. Although the per capita land in the village is only 0.44 hectares, each farmer grows rice and raises fish in their rice fields. Besides agriculture, off-farm activities, such as stone carving and tourism are supporting farmers' livelihoods in the village.

Cash needs are mainly catered for through remittances by village members that have migrated to western countries.

Threats –main factors affecting the conservation of agricultural biodiversity:
The rice-fish farming area in China has increased from 667,000 ha in 1959 to 985,000 ha in 1986 and 1,532,000 ha in 2000. However, it has since decreased to 1,480,000 ha in 2002. The rice-fish farming system is threatened by the expansion of highly productive mono rice or fish systems, which include rice or fish varieties relying on the application of chemicals (especially pesticides for rice and antibiotic medicines for fish) in rice fields or fish ponds.

The food safety, ecological functions and environment conservation are seriously undervalued. With chemicals, rice growers do not need to depend on fish to regulate pests and recycle nutrition. The intensive fish culture produces a lot of fish at a low price for the market, but with high (externalised) environmental costs.

During the last 20 years, the total aquatic production in China has increased by 8.7 times, yet the prices of aquatic products have increased by only 4.4 times. As a result, the benefits of raising fish in rice fields over the mono rice production are diminishing.

The management of rice-fish faming needs more labour and village cooperation than the mono rice production. A survey in Jiangsu province showed that half of the farmers who adopted rice-fish farming technologies in 2002 would prefer planting single rice or other crops to rice-fish farming in 2003. Some farmers claimed that if they dig the same area of rice field as a fish pond, they would make more money than the rice-fish farming. Some farmers who used to practice rice-fish farming reported that they prefer buying fishery products in markets to raising fish in their rice fields. The additional labour for managing a rice-fish system costs nearly the same as the fish it would produce. For fish to reach market size, farmers often need to continue to raise fish in the pond or rice field after the rice is harvested. This competes for land and labour, which are increasingly scarce in rural China.

The integrated rice-fish farming is further threatened by decreasing production costs of rice or fish monocultures. The cost reduction of the mono-culture is achieved through promotion of high-yield varieties and chemical inputs. The little gain from adopting the rice-fish culture undermines the continuation of the rice-fish farming, especially in more developed areas. In the rice monoculture system, farmers do not need to stay on farm after transplanting rice seedlings and application of the herbicides for weed control. They can take off-farm jobs for a few months before harvesting the rice. The total income from the rice monoculture and the off-farm job could be almost double that from the rice-fish culture system.

Expertise is required to manage the rice-fish culture system. This involves selection of fish and rice, management of density of rice plants and fish, disease control, fish feed, etc. Young people in the village are attracted to work in urban areas. Many do not have sufficient training on the rice-fish culture techniques. Moreover, the modern agricultural inputs, such as chemical fertilizers as well as pesticides substitute traditional organic inputs and leads to degradation of the rice-fish system environment. The modern varieties of rice and fish are also promoted for higher productivity and tend to replace the traditional landrace varieties.

However, the government is encouraging farmers to continue the rice-fish culture being an environmentally friendly technology. The local government's agricultural extension agents, particularly in the poor areas, are making great effort to extend the technology of the rice-fish farming. Sometimes, the government's objective in ecological improvement is not consistent with farmers' interest in profits.

Objectives and activities of the project:
The project objective is to recognize and promote multiple values of the rice-fish system for livelihoods, ecological and cultural preservation by evaluating policies, institutions and technological developments that impact on farmers' practices of the rice-fish system, and by developing a network of demonstration sites and partners in Zhejiang province, China. The specific activities are:

• Document changing patterns of the traditional rice-fish system;
• Evaluate the impact of policies, institutions and technologies on farmers' practices of the rice-fish systems and identify those policies, institutions and technologies that encourage the specialization of rice or fish production;
• Set up representative demonstration sites/ villages through a partnership between local communities, government, CSOs and other partners;
• Identify and demonstrate successful adaptations to social-economic changes, and explore the multiple values of the rice-fish system in the food safety, eco-agriculture, eco-tourism and ecological conservation;
• Develop a network on conservation of the rice-fish system among communities, local governments, CSOs and other partners;
• Develop a national policy framework and institutional support for GIAHS adaptive conservation in China;
• Develop a national guideline on nomination, labelling and monitoring of GIAHS in China.