28 MARCH 2023 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG surrounded how to launch the system and especially how to do so on a sustainable and inclusive trajectory. Today, the question has become how to foster and amplify those characteristics, how to expand so more farmers can benefit and how to manage new challenges associated with a maturing food system. From a technical perspective, an ongoing challenge, but one that is improving, has been the somewhat disorderly way that the system has grown due to a dearth of governmental regulations and enforcement. In the early 2010s most feed was provided by smallscale producers using primitive equipment and low-quality inputs that led to the use of inefficient feed and therefore inefficient fish production. Fingerling production during that time was also unable to keep up with growing demand, leading to imports of some fingerlings from Brazil. Today both problems have been mitigated to an extent. Larger and more sophisticated feed and fingerling businesses have entered the market, improving the quality of both products. The government, through the national authority for food safety and security (SENASAG), have also begun to regulate fish farms and businesses through operations registration and creation of standards. The PPV projects have played an important role in these areas by providing fingerling and fish food production training and by supporting the creation of governmental policies and laws. Another challenge is not only maintaining the social benefits of the system but spreading and amplifying them. Empowerment of women is increasingly being recognized as a critical factor for development but overcoming the structural barriers and social norms that hinder women’s access and control over assets and decision making is complex and difficult. Despite the opportunities central Bolivian aquaculture provides for women’s livelihoods and leadership, the potential is not even across geographies and scales. Women have been fundamental to aquaculture’s development in the heartland where central Bolivian aquaculture started but, as it expands to new regions of the country, those roles are not assured. Women in the heartland region are facing new challenges as well. Their success has led them to explore opportunities for expansion and scale-up, not only of production, but of value chain integration. APNI is currently in the process of constructing a large feed mill, exposing new challenges such as enterprise management and navigating the corporate business world as women. To address these challenges, the third PPV project supports the expansion of aquaculture in such a way that it generates women’s participation and leadership. It focuses on training, awareness building and partnerships to build the capacity of women and entrench valuation of them among aquaculturists and the general population. This is done by going beyond a strict focus on aquaculture and towards bolstering their management role in home production, in local associations and in broader government and social spaces and moving from economic empowerment to general empowerment by addressing issues of domestic violence, access to health and equity in homecare and family decisions. This approach is designed to help women continue to be protagonists in the aquaculture system and enjoy sustained empowerment into the future. A further challenge is ensuring that expansion to new regions is not only inclusive, but that is adapted to differentiated social and cultural characteristics. Aquaculture production is being adopted further north, thanks to the latest PPV project, in communities that have stronger traditions of communal agricultural activities and ownership. Despite evidence that communal aquaculture struggles to be productive or profitable (Canal-Beeby 2012), the community urge to cooperate and maintain unity should not be overlooked. Modified systems co-created with community members and experts are needed to strike the balance between tradition and effective operation so that inclusive adoption occurs and is sustained. Related to growth and expansion are the emerging environmental considerations and risks. When the system was in its infancy, its environmental footprint was negligible. The cultivation of omnivorous indigenous fish species in rain-fed earthen ponds with little chemical input for nearby markets made for a very environmentally friendly recipe. Although those characteristics continue today, intensification and expansion of the system raises questions about the limits at which it remains relatively environmentally benign. Risks of land clearing and deforestation for pond construction are growing and microclimate alteration from heat reflection from removal of vegetation is a consideration. The environmental impacts of activities that are upstream and downstream of production are also becoming more significant as those become more numerous and industrialized. The expansion of the value chain system overall is creating new challenges that will need to be monitored and mitigated when possible. A final principal challenge that is emerging is managing growth. Concern over the adoption and sustaining of the system has waned, as has concern over demand meeting supply. Although aquaculture has grown dramatically in the past decade, and especially in the past five years, the popularity of fish for food has grown even faster. Nationally, aquaculture still only provides less than 40 percent of Bolivia’s fish consumption, the remainder is imported (Gongora 2022). The challenge now is continuing to develop the system in a manner that it remains widespread and accessible to small-scale producers. Capitalist tendencies have pushed some previously smallscale farmers to become increasingly larger scale, and the size and profitability of the system has attracted the attention of more corporate actors. Consolidation into a smaller number of large-scale production complexes runs the risk of pushing small-scale farmers out and undermining the broad-based rural development benefits that the system has generated so far. Possible approaches to mitigating this risk are related to governance, possibly around co-operative marketing, and continuing to foster an enabling environment for small-scale farmers to enter and thrive. Re-thinking the Possibilities of Small-Scale Aquaculture One could be forgiven for reading the literature on aquaculture and concluding that it is a panacea for rural development and food security. While the theory behind this continues to hold promise, evidence on the ground has remained scant, especially in supposedly ideal regions in Africa and Latin America. The central Bolivian aquaculture system is an exception. It helps us understand why aquaculture development in rural regions outside of Asia continues to lag and what factors can kick-start its emergence. It also demonstrates that the theoretical social and economic benefits of the activity can materialize in practice; however, it brings to light a number of challenges that aquaculture faces as well, not only with its establishment but with its continued development. Central Bolivian aquaculture reveals two key components to achieving aquaculture’s rural development promise that are often
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