Integrated Aquatic and Terrestrial Food Production Enhances Micronutrient and Economic Productivity for Nutrition-Sensitive Food Systems

This is a graph showing the average quantities of foods produced and shares sold for each food group in each farming system.
This graph shows the average quantities of foods produced and shares sold for each food group in each farming system.

Authors: Liz Ignowski, Ben Belton, Hazrat Ali, and Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted

Abstract

Integrated aquaculture–agriculture (IAA) is a form of crop diversification where aquatic and terrestrial foods are grown together on a single parcel of land. We compare economic and nutrient productivity per hectare for 12 distinct IAA combinations, identified from a representative survey of 721 farms in southern Bangladesh. Just under half of households integrate agriculture into their aquaculture production. Regression analyses show positive associations between the integration of terrestrial foods into aquatic farming systems and nutrient productivity, but that nutrient productivity is partly disconnected from economic productivity. However, we find that production of specific combinations of aquatic foods and vegetables can simultaneously improve nutrient productivity and economic productivity, thereby promoting nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA). The approach demonstrated here can be applied to the design of NSA programmes that are important for realizing nutrition-sensitive food systems.

Read the full publication at https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00840-8.

Published September 13, 2023