INTRODUCTION
Integrated agriculture-aquaculture (IAA), particularly rice-fish farming, presents a viable strategy for enhancing rural economic development and sustainable livelihoods by diversifying income sources, optimizing resource-use (land water, biodiversity), promoting rural enterprise development, and strengthening resilience to socio-economic shocks. Despite its potential economic benefits, wide scale adoption across sub-Saharan Africa has remained low due to constraints in access to critical inputs (seeds, feeds), weak market linkages, and fragmented institutional support. This study applies the DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response) framework, and analyzes the interconnected social-economic-environmental-people dynamics that shape IAA adoption and provide a structured lens to understand the process for scaling integrated systems as a lever for inclusive rural economic transformation.
METHODOLOGY: The combined sustainable livelihoods and DPSIR approach
The methodological process for this study began with the identification of the rice-fish system as the focal integrated agriculture-aquaculture model. Sustainable livelihood indicators, and ecosystem services indicators were then defined to guide the assessment. Field surveys were conducted using qualitative questionnaires, and analyzed to capture key livelihood and environmental variables, followed by descriptive data analysis to interpret patterns and relationships. These insights informed the development of an adapted DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response) framework tailored to the rice-fish system for evaluating its contribution to economic development and sustainable livelihoods. Thereafter, the DPSIR framework was applied to identify priority areas for targeted policy interventions that can support broader adoption and impact.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
At the foundation of this system are the drivers, which reflect the underlying motivations that prompt governments, communities, and individual farmers to adopt integrated agriculture-aquaculture. Key drivers identified include increased demand for enhanced farm productivity (measured by yield, food item diversity, and seasonality), improved food and nutrition security, income generation, poverty alleviation, effective wetland management, and adaptation to climate variability (dry spells, flood, water stress). These drivers produce both environmental and anthropogenic pressures that include modification of existing agricultural fields to allow for farm diversification, altered on-farm hydrological regimes, pest and disease control measures, initial biodiversity stress as a result of the field modification, and intensified use of organic and inorganic inputs (fertilizers, pesticides). These pressures, both environmental and decision-driven, lead to observable state changes, such as improved water conservation efficiency, more sustainable land use, reduced pesticide reliance, enhanced biodiversity, and better soil fertility and flood regulation. These ecological and biophysical changes yield indirect impacts which arise from improved ecosystem services, particularly provisioning (crops, fish, other aquatic foods), regulating services (disease and pest control, flood and climate regulation), and supporting services (nutrient cycling, primary production, biodiversity maintenance). This shift supports sustainable livelihoods by strengthening the base upon which rural households build resilience and pursue development goals (the drivers). Simultaneously, the analysis documented direct impacts such as increased livelihood diversification, higher household income, market access expansion, food and nutrition gains, poverty alleviation, improved dietary diversity, enhanced wellbeing, educational opportunities and increased knowledge dissemination on IAA among smallholder farmers. These gains are facilitated by responses that include farmer-led initiatives, community-driven knowledge sharing, government support, and technical training provided by formal and informal extension advisory services.
CONCLUSION
This study concludes that IAA serves as an effective economic development lever by addressing core drivers of economic development, and responding to underlying environmental, social, and economic sustainability requirements required to sustain enabling conditions for inclusive, scalable and sustainable transformation of local economies. The DPSIR analysis demonstrates that the adoption of rice-fish systems as an IAA, when strategically implemented, can drive transformative changes in rural economies.