1. 1
Modalities for re-orientating research in development: using community
science to sustain the adoption of Small-scale Aquaculture as an alternative
livelihood and contributor to better management of wetland resources in
North East Cambodia
Johnstone, G. M., Chea, S., and Phoeu K.
1The WorldFish Center, Greater Mekong Office, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
2 The WorldFish Center, Greater Mekong Office, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
3 Kamphon Community Saving Group, Stung Treng, Cambodia
Abstract
In Strung Treng Province in North-east Cambodia, the WorldFish Center in partnership with the
Fishery Administration (FiA) and the NGO, Culture and Environmental Preservation Association
(CEPA) are using community science to improve the uptake of small-scale aquaculture (SSA) by
communities with limited experience of fish culture. The project is funded by the Wetlands
Alliance and the SSA system, called ‘WISH-Ponds’ (water & fish), uses participatory action research
to establish a system of transformative learning in a household to assess and evaluate the costs and
benefits of SSA. The WISH-Pond system has been designed to function through collectives like
savings group and is targeted towards households with limited space to construct large aquaculture
ponds such as peri-urban households. The paper describes the WISH-Pond system and how research
has been used by the community to test and develop aquaculture ponds that meet the needs of
households and in particular women. The paper explores the significance of community science in
developing and adopting SSA systems as an alternative livelihood and as contributor to better
management of wetland resources.
Introduction
Small-scale Aquaculture (SSA) is prevalent in many countries in Southeast Asia and has been
championed by development institutions, governments and NGOS for its potential to alleviate
poverty, enhance food security, diversify livelihoods and promote economic development
(Allison, 2011). In Cambodia, aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food production
sectors contributing to just over 10% of the country’s total fish production at 40,000 tonnes in
2008 (Fishery National Statistics, 2007). The Aquaculture Development Plan of Cambodia
(2000-2020) produced by the National Fishery Administration (FiA) aims to expand
aquaculture production to at least 300,000 tonnes of fish per annum by 2020 to maintain the
annual per capita consumption level of 30 kg (Joffre, et al. 2010).To meet this demand, a
significant increase in total aquaculture production is needed. This will require different
implementation strategies across the sector that target both small and large-scale aquaculture
developments.

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Of the seven major aquaculture systems in Cambodia1
the extensive homestead pond culture
is the most common system promoted by NGOs and donor projects (Viseth and Pengbun
2005). These ponds are aimed primarily at improving food security of rural poor households.
Each pond costs approximately USD$300 to construct and vary in dimension between 80 to
300 m² with production rates of approximately 1.0 kg /m² (So, 2009).The fish feed for
homestead ponds comes mainly from on-farm products (rice bran, duckweed) and most of the
produce is used for household consumption. Donor interventions in general promote exotic
species such as tilapia, pangasius catfish, silver barb (Barbonymusgonionotus), walking
catfish (Clariasbatrachus) and climbing perch (Anabas testudineus).
One of the main reasons why extensive homestead ponds are promoted to rural poor
households by NGOs and donor projects is that they require limited resources such as land,
labour and inputs. The assumption is that poor rural households have the resources required
to engage in low-investment, low-input forms of aquaculture. However, a recent study
undertaken by WorldFish (Joffre, et al. 2010) challenges these assumptions and has looked at
the status of aquaculture in Cambodia with particularly emphasis on its contribution to the
poor. The study highlighted that poor farmers often do not have sufficient homestead land to
dig a pond, or sufficient cash or access to cash for pond inputs and operational costs
particularly where on-farm food is not available. Farmers are often unable or unwilling to risk
continued investment in aquaculture after the support from a project has ended and instead
have reverted to wild sources for both fingerlings and feeds2
. The study noted that in order
for the rural communities to continue fish farming and limit their reliance on natural
resources, they would need to buy fingerings from hatcheries for each growing cycle and to
purchase feeds to intensify growth. Any development investment in SSA would therefore
need to consider how rural poor households will access the seed, both in terms of physical
access and price, and they also need to consider the quality of the seed.
The challenge raised in the Joffre study (2010) is to find different ways to develop more
sustainable SSA systems for adoption and uptake by households in Cambodia. This requires a
reassessment of the policies and modalities for introducing fish culture and a move away
from its conception as a simple system for improving food security or reducing poverty. In
redefining SSA, the ability for poor households to invest in aquaculture needs to be critically
assessed. Ellis (1993) described SSA as an activity that is practiced by households that derive
a significant portion of their income from agricultural activities, utilize family labour in
productive activities and procure some proportion of SSA inputs from non-market sources.
The suggestion is that SSA is most likely to be sustained in households where there are
means and multiple livelihoods. Furthermore, the desire to develop and sustain a fish pond is
as much about personal satisfaction as it is about economic prosperity and food security
(White, 2010). The contribution of SSA to welfare in both its material form and its subjective
dimension of satisfaction is an important consideration here. There is growing evidence that
fish farming has become equated with modernity and fish ponds have become aspirational
1
Cage and pen culture; intensive pond culture; extensive homestead ponds; community fish refuges; integrated
rice-fish farming; shrimp farming and marine fin-fish culture
2
So and Haing (2007) estimated that 26% of the fish fingerings used in aquaculture in Cambodia are collected
from rivers, lakes, flooded rice fields or reservoirs, rather than purchased from hatcheries.

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assets and seen as indicators of wealth (Bush, 2004). This is also linked to growth in
urbanisation that has become an important driver for fish production (Belton and Little,
2010).
However, an area that has received little attention in this discussion is the potential for SSA
to build the capacity of producers and communities to undertake research, and to monitor and
evaluate the costs and benefits of aquaculture as learning process for adoption and adaption.
The Joffre study (2010) highlighted that few projects had documented or recorded how
aquaculture contributes to improving household food security, incomes or nutrition or had
documented adequately the lessons learned to improve and reflect on the process of
introducing aquaculture into communities. The WISH-Pond system introduced and discussed
in this paper has been designed to develop a more rigorous approach to introducing SSAs to
rural and per-urban households that aims to sustain use and adoption through the application
of community science. The pilot study for the intervention has two objectives:
 To establish a system of action research that records the costs and benefits of the
development and management of small-scale aquaculture (SSA) ponds in households that
rely on fishing activities for food security and incomes;
 To strengthen the skills of producers in community science by supporting households and
savings group to identify questions and indicators to monitor and assess SSA.
Community Science and the WISH Pond system
There are two models of research that can be applied to generate knowledge and data to better
understand the contribution of SSA to communities in Cambodia. The first is empirical-based
research carried out by researchers who identify a problem and develop questions and
methods to generate data independent of those who are been studied (German and Stround,
2006). The aim of the research is to make conclusive statements about a problem or issue of
interest. The research is managed primarily by decision makers outside of the physical area of
study and the results are used to guide decisions in applying policy or an intervention. By
contrast the second research model actively seeks to engage the people who are being
researched in the research process itself by identifying research questions, designing studies,
collecting and analysing data and applying the results. In this paper the term community
science is used to describe this second process3
.
While empirical research is typically non-participatory, community science engages people in
the research process. This does expose tensions within the scientific community between
those that see scientific inquiry as an objective activity aimed at limiting bias in the
interpretation of results compared with those that view science, particularly if the subject of
enquiry is people, as a subjective activity where it is impossible to be unbiased (Cooper, et al
2007). In the context of development and the changes that occur within a community, the
notion of community science can be conceived as research in development (R in D). This is
3
Community science is distinct to citizen science that is typified by public data-collection projects that yield
both scientific and educational outcomes and require significant effort.

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research and research methods that function as learning processes that link and operationalise
research for development (German & Stround, 2006). In practice it represents a series of
participatory methods and techniques that bridge the gap between research and development
and engages people to learn about their environment and the changes that occur in its
development (Ibid).
Like empirical research, community science identifies problems and employs various
participatory methodologies to generate knowledge and learning. The knowledge obtained in
this process is not used to prove or falsify hypotheses but rather to help construct a better
understanding of reality, to reduce risks about the subject of enquiry and to predict with more
certainty future outcomes. Through this science, tests and experiments can be made to look at
trends and to aid further observations that can assist decisions and guide local change
processes. Community science is a reflective process of progressive problem solving that
provides a better understanding of the community and its environment and functions as an
important platform for learning.
Various participatory research approaches and methods are represented in community
science, which can be seen as part of a spectrum of science emanating from empirical
research, through action research (AR) and moving towards participatory action-learning
(PAL) (see Table 1 below). At one end of the spectrum, research is guided by external
researchers that engage people in different forms of AR whilst at the other end the research
process is carried out by the community for the community applying PAL approaches.
Table 1: Typology of community science methodologies (adapted from German & Stroud, 2006)
Method Who defines research / data
characteristics
Research outputs
Participatory
Action Learning
 Community involved in defining
research
 Lessons integrated in change process
(transformative learning)
 Data capture informal
 Approaches that ‘work’ relative to
development goals / change process
defined by beneficiaries
 Applied to guide a change process
Action Research  Research defined by community and
off-site result users
 Data capture relatively fixed but able
to interpret emergent realities
 Generates general principles about
development / change process
 To help guide the development /
change process
Traditional
Empirical
Research
 Research defined by decision makers,
development agencies, resource users,
policy makers
 Data capture systematic
 Conclusive statements about subject
of enquiry
 Applied to guide decision-making
Materials and methods
The ‘WISH-Pond’ system refers to water storage and fish and was developed in partnership
with the Government of Cambodia’s Fishery Administration (FiA) and NGO Culture and
Environmental Preservation Association (CEPA). Both these partners have been supporting
SSA in Strung Treng Province in North Eastern Cambodia since 2009 and have been funded
as part of the Wetlands Alliance Program. The WISH-Ponds are much smaller than the

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extensive fish ponds normally supported by development projects with pond size varying
between 8 to 20 m².
The WISH-ponds have been targeted towards rural and peri-urban households that do not
have access or ownership over large areas of land but want to increase their water storage
capacity and produce fish for household consumption and sale. The ponds can support a more
intensive production system and are stocked using pangasius catfish (600 per pond), which
can produce a yield up to 3 kg per m² (see figure 1 below). The village of Kamphon was used
for this case study, which is based along the Sesan River. The village has 494 households and
a population of 1,702 people (Commune Data Base, 2010). The livelihood of the community
is dependent mainly upon agriculture, fishing, and hunting. However, since the construction
of the Yali Dam in Vietnam in 1993, livelihoods have been impacted through changes in
water levels that have caused losses in habitat to the flooded forest and deep-pools. This has
reduced fish catches and consequently the availability of fish protein that constitutes up to
85% of the total protein intake of Cambodians (IFReDI, 2012).
The approach adopted for the introduction of the WISH-Ponds applied AR methods that
helped guide the science jointly with producers and households. This approach also aimed to
build research capacity and confidence within the community to generate questions and
indicators that is more closely aligned with the PAL system of community science. The
research inputs were discussed and negotiated with the Komphon Village Community
Savings Group (KCSG) and incorporated into the signed agreement with Worldfish. The
KCSG was set set-up in 2009 by FiA and has 27 members (four men and 23 women). Five
members of the saving group have already received training and financial support from FiA
to develop SSA ponds (4m x 2m) using plastic lining. The approach adopted by FiA was to
support the saving group by providing construction materials and fingerlings. Similarly
CEPA has supported a number of individual households through the provision of construction
materials, fingerlings and pellet feeds. In both instances, the households provided with
project support produced fish but there was little incentive to continue or knowledge
generated about the costs and benefits of the SSA once project support had stopped. The
WISH-Pond agreement with KCSG stipulated that FiA and CEPA work together and become
engaged in the research process by providing technical support and assessing the quality of
data collected by producers. By involving the community and local partners in research
within this study, the aim was to provide a more sustainable basis for the adoption of SSA.
Figure 1: The different WISH‐Pond designs and systems in Stung Treng Province, NE Cambodia

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The agreement negotiated with the KCSG included designing a system to record data and this
was developed as a ‘picture-based’ monitoring sheet that could be completed daily by each
household producer. The data collected included both quantitative and qualitative data so that
both numbers and contextual data were collected. Seed funding of USD$1,700 and 9,000
fingerlings were provided to the KCSG through the agreement to be managed by the group
under the condition that those that participated would pay back half of the loan and provide
information on the costs and benefits of SSA.
A total of 10 households agreed to take loans through the KCSG (seven headed by women)
and they were selected using criteria developed by the saving group, which included families
dependent on fishing for food security and incomes and female headed households with
children. Out of these households, four constructed cement ponds and six plastic lined ponds.
After the selection of household, each received training from the FiA and CEPA on fish
culture techniques and how to record data using the picture-based monitoring sheet. A further
five households that had existing ponds also agreed to participate in the research monitoring
system. The responsibility for the construction of the ponds was designated to each household
and the data fields agreed for monitoring identified during discussions and trainings with the
KCSG are listed in Table 2.
Table 2: Data fields collected during the production cycle
Data fields Details
Construction  Labour
 Materials
 Time (hours) multiplied by average labour cost ($)
 Cost of cement, wood, plastic lining ($)
Feeds  Pellets  Quantity of pellets purchased and used ($ / kg)
 Natural feeds
(termites, red ants, snail,
frogs, worm)
 Time (hours) spent collecting termites multiplied by
average labour cost ($)
 Number of kg (cups) of termites used per day
 Agriculture feeds
(rice, rice bran)
 Cost of product ($) multiplied by cooking time costs
Fish health  Deaths
 Water change
 Number of fish deaths per cycle
 Time, quantity and cost of water changes
Harvesting  Feed conversion ratio
 Consumption
 Selling
 Kg of feed that produces one kg of fish
 Kg of fish produced in total
 Kg consumed by household
 Kg sold
 Market value ($) of fish sold
Results
Of the 15 households engaged in the study, 13 provided daily data over the 3-month period
(90 day growth cycle). Table 3 below provides a summary of the data collected by KCSG and
is presented as an average per household for the 90-day production cycle.
Each pond used the same number of fingerlings (600 fingerlings) that were purchased from a
near-by nursery. Households used three kinds of feed that included: fish-feed pellets that
were purchased from market; natural feeds such as insects, termites, worms, snails, frogs and
red ants that were collected from the forest, rice fields and river bank; and lastly agriculture
products such as rice-feed prepared for pigs, bran rice, broken rice and crust of rice. The cost

7. 7
of the feeds included an estimate of the labour cost and time used to prepare feeds so that
each household produced a record of the time spent foraging or cooking.
Including labour costs as an opportunity cost both in the calculation of pond construction and
feeds costs is an important component of the data and particularly significant when
discussing the results with the KCSG. In relation to feeds and the time spent foraging for
natural feeds this varied considerably from an hour to as much as six hours per day, which
greatly increased the cost of this otherwise regarded free natural resource.
Table 3: summary of the data presented as an average per household for the 90‐day production cycle
Data fields Average per household (n= 13) Results
Construction  Labour plus
 Material cost
 Cost of an SSA pond (3x4m)
 Cost of cement pond
 Cost of plastic above ground pond
 Cost of a plastic below ground pond
$158
$295 (n=4)
$89 (n=3)
$57 (n=3)
Feeds  Pellets  Percentage of pellet feeds used per cycle
 Total cost of pellet feed per production cycle
40% (29 kg)
$32.68
 Natural feeds  Percentage of natural feeds used per cycle
 Total cost of natural feed per production cycle
49% (35 kg)
$5.70
 Agriculture feeds  Percentage of agricultural feeds used per cycle
 Total cost of agricultural feed per production cycle
11% (7 kg)
$1.68
 All feeds  Total cost of all feed types per production cycle
 Cost of all feed types per day
$39.02
$0.43
Fish health  Deaths  Number of fish deaths per cycle
 Percentage of deaths per pond
37/ 600
6%
Harvesting  Feed ratio  Feed conversion ratio 1.68
 Consumption  Quantity of fish produced per cycle
 Quantity consumed by household
42.38 kg
17.69 kg
 Selling  Quantity sold
 Value of fish sold
20.23 kg
$38.94
In maintaining the quality of the pond water, 13 households used water from the river and
two used water from a well. The cost of river water varied between households where some
used a water pump to change water from the river two to three times per month that cost on
average $2.0 per use of the pump whilst others collected three to four or five 10 litre buckets
each day that was used to water the vegetable garden and fill the pond.
Data collection included monitoring fish health and despite a relatively low average death
rate of 6% per pond, high death rates up to 25% were concentrated on three ponds. Training
on disease control was provided and prevented the disease spreading. However, those ponds
prone to disease continued to suffer from slow growth and production rates.
Discussion
Initial discussions with the KCSG focussed on how the group could use the data collected to
improve the efficiency and benefits from SSA and develop the most appropriate re-payment
system for the saving group. These discussions resulted in a series of recommendations and
observations including that the SSA system had reduced the reliance on catching fish from
the river and had also allowed more time to invest in other livelihood opportunities such as

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growing vegetables or raising animals around the home. This was highlighted as particularly
important for women where more time could be spent taking care of children and undertaking
pond management activities rather than spending time away from home looking for casual
labour opportunities or working in the rice fields.
The results show that households have used WISH-ponds to produce an income and also to
support food security with about half the produce used for consumption and the rest sold for
income. Most households reported using the pond like a ‘refrigerator’ and instead of fishing
in the river they had fish at home. In addition they could cover the cost of the feeds at the end
of the cycle by selling half the produce. However, a concern for the group was how the loan
would be repaid and the group discussed different ways to innovate and reduce the input
costs both in the construction and with feed costs. This lead to an agreement that future loans
for SSA development would require producers to sell half the fish produce in order to repay
the saving group loan. This rule now forms the basis by which new loans are agreed for SSA.
The study has also shown how the costs can be reduced by introducing a modality that
allowed each household to develop their own construction methods. This has meant that the
construction costs and techniques varied between households and resulted in some borrowing
more whilst others borrow less from the KCSG. The approach created a PAL research
platform for innovation that enabled households to explore different techniques to improve
the SSA product. This was particularly relevant to cement ponds that were the most desirable
SSA system as it provided an easy to manage fish pond particularly for women and also
provided a useful water storage facility for watering the garden. Similarly, the use of natural
feeds was observed by a number of households to produce rapid growth rates in fish and
better production rates, which could reduce the high cost of pellet feeds. This has resulted in
some households exploring how to reduce labour costs and foraging time by testing different
techniques to grow and reproduce termites and worms as part of the home-garden practices.
Conclusion
The WISH-Pond system aims to provide the knowledge and research setting for rural and
peri-urban households to assess the costs and benefits of SSA. The study indicates that
WISH-Ponds provide a potentially more sustainable method for introducing aquaculture
ponds to households that have limited experience of growing fish by involving producers in
research and generating data that provides a better understanding of the SSA livelihood
activity. There is evidence WISH-ponds also supports the aspirational elements of welfare as
the construction and successful adoption and use of a concrete pond has become a symbol of
status and development that many households in the village wish to aspire.
The modality of introducing WISH-Ponds through the savings groups has been successfully
applied and facilitated through an agreement between WorldFish, CEPA, FiA and the KCSG.
The agreement has provided a platform to guide research and data collection as well as
develop specific details about the activities and responsibilities of each household and the
saving groups. Although more time and analysis is needed to fully assess the WISH-Pond
system, the requirement for households to collect and discuss data on SSA appears to have

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developed a more rigorous approach to introducing SSAs into communities that can be
adopted and scaled-out by governments, NGOs and development agencies.
In conclusion, the study provides important insights into the challenges and constraints for
introducing SSA into rural households in Cambodia. It indicates that WISH-ponds can create
an important learning platform for communities to address many of the challenges to sustain
SSA development using community-science that uses data generated and owned by the
participants. The results also provide opportunities for future community-science and have
strengthened the capacity of the community and local partners to apply an iterative process of
research in development through testing, discussion and learning.
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