The model for rice fish culture with fish pits was developed as an improvement to traditional rice fish culture. It has now become the main type of rice fish culture and, in some regions, the major way for farmers to increase their incomes.
China has a long history of rice fish culture.
The traditional method of rice fish farming in flat fields faces many conflicts between rice and fish and is easily upset by changes in natural conditions. Farmers often have to sacrifice the fish to save the rice, which has diminished the role of rice fish farming and hindered its development. Before 1980, rice fish farming in Dazu County yielded only 22.5 52.5 kg of fish per hectare. Fish yields from flat-field rice fish farming. Before the 1980s, aquaculture scientists in China experimented with fish troughs combined with fish trenches, which had been adopted in ricefields in the southern part of Jiangsu Province.