sales to friends and relatives resident in
the producing community is reduced.Belief Systems
Throughout the developing world,
belief systems have a major impact on
resource use. Local constraints embedded
in traditional magico-religious systems
may be the most widespread community-
wide sociocultural factor either impeding
the development of aquaculture in Africa
(Grove et al. 19801, or, in contrast, being
overwhelmed by it in combination with
other elements of change. Such phenomena
are not generalizable since they occur as a
plethora of local details.
Commonplace throughout Africa, for
example, is the animistic belief that
ancestral and guardian spirits of a
household or community reside in a wide
variety of natural or manmade landscape
features. For this reason the development
of aquaculture may be either retarded or
precluded entirely in a particular locality
by a refusal to modify the environment,
such as to excavate fishponds, or even to
modify those constructed by ancestors
(Grove et al. 1980). In MalaCi, such beliefs
have retarded the development of small-
scale aquaculture in parts of Lilongwe
District (D.H. Ng'ong'ola, pers. comm.).Impact on Exterrral InfluencesCONCEPTUAL AND PLANNING DEFICIENCIES
As the history of past failures in
developing countries demonstrates, the
development of sustainable aquaculture
requires sound policy, well-conceived
planning, and proper implementation via
biotechnical and socioeconomic research
that works in tandem with a dedicated
extension service. These are indispensable
for ensuring successful and sustained
development. Ill-conceived projects coupled
with contradictory objectives have been
highlighted as a major source of prior
failures in aquaculture development
projects (FA0 1975). For example, in one
appraisal of the status of aquaculture in
developing countries it was observed that
"most failures of aquaculture development
programs in Africa so far can be explained
by the lack of qualified technicians and of
an adequate infrastructure, as well as by
the absence of government policy
specifically aimed at this form of
development" (Coche 1983). This feedback
has revealed itself in the widespread
acknowledgement of (a) conceptual and
planning deficiencies, and (b) in
infrastructural deficiencies in systems.
Among the principal impacts on
external influences of developing-country
aquaculture development programs is the
realization that failure has stemmed
fundamentally from not having viewed
aquaculture as a system, the success of
which depends on the parallel development
of a physical and institutional support
infrastructure. The long-term objectives
of alleviating malnutrition and poverty in
developing countries do not depend just on
increasing the production of a balanced
mix of foodstuffs, as is commonly
considered, as much as on increasing their
distribution for either direct food use or of
the distribution of the benefits of the
commodities, when they are not used for
direct local consumption. For example,
throughout southern Africa transportation
costs are perhaps the principal constraint
on supplying inexpensive fish to
consumers; as in Zambia, where they can
sometimes be three or four times the value
of the fish transported (Subramaniam
1986).
The provision of appropriate
institutions is of perhaps greater
importance. Most evaluations ofintegrated
rural development programsassume either
the prior existence of, or the ability to
create quickly, an institutional structure
appropriate to local needs and capable of