famine, there is a natural tendency to
react with incautious optimism to any
promising means, such as aquaculture, of
raising food production levels.
Essentially, development of
aquaculture has been severely retarded in
developing countries by the failure of
agencies, governments and farmers to
appreciate its basic requirements. In
particular it is not well appreciated that
aquaculture development must be
integrated within overall and
comprehensive rural development
programs, and also that it must be
supported by an appropriate range of
economic, physical, institutional,
structural and other investments.
Further, in many nations aquaculture
may have little or no role to play in the
national development process. In some
instances, "aquaculture" may just have
become a fashionable term entered into
national policy documentsmerely to satisfy
the policies ofdonors or assistance agencies.
In some nations or regions there may be no
justification other than this, and efforts
and funds might be better directed to
developing other sources of animal and
vegetable protein, lest effort and funds be
squandered.
Commonly, too, the human ecological
implications of biological and physical
environmental constraints to aquaculture
development are not fully appreciated. In
particular, high elevation above sea level
and aridity or drought-proneness are
fundamental and severe constraints on
the development of aquaculture, because
successful adaptation to them adds greatly
to the risk burden of small-scale farm
households and communities. Since rates
of fish growth correlate positively with
temperature, many parts of developing
countries are suboptimal for fish growth.
This also limits the species that can be
cultured. Obviously, where areliable water
supply is not available for at least most of
the year, aquaculture is infeasible.
Paradoxically, therefore, many areas best
suited to aquaculture development are
naturally fish-rich and are already
exploited by freshwater capture fisheries.
This is not to say that aquaculture
development in such areas would be
pointless, rather it highlights the need for
a parallel development of distribution and
marketing systems for fish products.
Aquaculture development must
conform to the overall development goals
and policies of a country and be adapted to
local biological, physical and sociocultural
norms that will be critical in determining
its success. Many otherwise excellent
aquaculture programs have failed because
these two fundamental factors were not
fully considered (FA0 1985). This has led
to the frustrated expectations and negative
perceptions of client populations with
respect to official competence and sincerity
in attempts to promote development and
thus to the emergence of new behavior
patterns among client populations that
can only retard the acceptance of later
innovations.Innovation Adoption Process
, As is now well established, the
principal factors in the process which
impinge on the incorporation of any
innovation into rural society are: (1)
perceptions with respect to the innovation
and the requirements for its successful
adoption, together with motives for
adoption; and (2) decisionmaking,
principally regarding the perceived risks
inherent in its adoption.Perceptions Regarding
an Innovation
Most official perceptions, including
those of donors, underlying the
introduction of aquaculture are that it
can: (1) improve local nutritional levels
and variety, by both the direct production