Video credit: Herman Hennig (Argentina)
Review: Herman Hennig and Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of the website and video channel)
This video was filmed in a farm located in La Leonesa, Chaco, in the north of Argentina. The farm provides an example of rotary farming between rice and fish whereas Pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus) is the fish species cultured on this farm.
The area used for such innovative activity is about 210 hectares whereas the area of each pond such as the one shown in this video is more than 25 hectares with a water depth of about 1.3 meters.
The farm adapts extensive farming systems in which the stocking density of pacu is of about 2,000 fish per hectare, without water renewal and with a mixed diet of natural plants and feeds. One can notice the tractor pulling a feed blower that is used to expel the fish feed into the pond. The target production is 7,500 kg of rice/hectar and between 2,000 and 3,000 kg of pacu/hectar.
It may worth noting that rotating farming between wheat and soybean is a common practice in Argentine, and so the current rotation between rice and pacu is an alternative activity.
In the present rotation model, pacu production allowed rice farmers to sow pre-germinated rice seeds in a 3-centimeters depth of water, providing more advantages over conventional planting. As the soil contains a much mud and nutrients (generated by fish excreta), and hence the rotovation is not necessary and so the use of herbicides, providing greater farming sustainability compared to traditional model of rice production.
In this given project, the rice cropped in the fall and subsequently the pacu specimens are stocked and grow till harvesting before planting rice and so on.
