Field Crop 2025, Vol.8, No.5, 238-246 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/fc 243 6 Challenges and Limitations 6.1 Technical and knowledge barriers It is not easy to promote rice-fish symbiosis. Many farmers do not know much about this method of combining farming and breeding, and do not have relevant technical experience. For example, they are not good at managing water resources in rice fields, and do not know how to stock fish, let alone how to prevent and control pests and diseases without harming fish (Ahmed and Garnett, 2011). Sometimes, a flood or drought can cause them great losses. But the problem is that there are few training opportunities and insufficient extension services in many areas. Farmers do not know where to learn these new knowledge, and no one teaches them step by step. This makes it more difficult for them to try new methods. Many experts and researchers believe that more research should be carried out and more "farmer-participatory" training activities should be organized. Only in this way can farmers gradually learn these technologies and be willing to try rice-fish symbiosis (Hu et al., 2016). 6.2 Economic and market constraints In addition to technical difficulties, money is also a big problem. Converting rice fields into fish farming requires a lot of initial investment, such as digging ditches, repairing dams, and buying fish fry and fish feed. These expenses are a huge burden for some small farmers (Li et al., 2023). What's more troublesome is that the sales of fish and other products are not very good. In some places, the market is not sound, and the things grown and raised by farmers are difficult to sell, and the prices are not stable. As a result, everyone is less motivated to try this model. In addition, social and economic issues such as the land not belonging to oneself and the large fluctuations in prices also make the rice-fish model difficult to promote. Farmers will back off if they raise good fish but cannot sell them, or if the investment is too high and they cannot make a profit (Pearlin et al., 2024). 6.3 Institutional and policy gaps In many places, policies are still not keeping up with the development needs of rice-fish symbiosis. The government has not yet formulated policies specifically to support this model, and there is not enough funding for promotion projects and research (Subedi and Paudel, 2020). What farmers are most worried about is that the use rights of land and water are unclear. Sometimes they don’t even know whether the land is theirs. In addition, it is difficult to get loans, the loan amount is small, and there is no one to manage infrastructure construction, which has become a big problem. If you want to make rice-fish symbiosis really take off, you need a stronger policy system to support it. For example, clarify land and water rights, provide training and financial support, help open up sales channels, etc. Only in this way can rice-fish symbiosis truly play a role in food security, ecological protection and farmers’ income increase (Sathoria and Roy, 2022). 7 Future Directions and Recommendations 7.1 Research needs and data gaps Now, many people are beginning to pay attention to the practice of rice-fish symbiosis, but more research is needed to make it work. In particular, we need to figure out how to best combine organic fertilizers and biofertilizers to make both rice and fish grow well (Yassi et al., 2023). Too much of these fertilizers is not good, and too little is not good either, so finding the right amount is crucial. In addition, we also need some actual experimental data. For example, what impact does this combination of crop-livestock farming have on the environment? Will it reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Can it save water? What is the benefit to biodiversity? These questions need to be studied in different weather conditions and different regions, and we cannot just look at one situation. We still lack long-term data, especially on sustainability performance in different agricultural ecological zones, and whether its economic returns are good. In order to make farmers feel more confident to use it and policymakers more willing to support it, we need to evaluate these systems in a variety of ways, such as setting multiple indicators and conducting detailed statistical analysis. This will help us find the best practices and provide a more realistic reference for policy making (Zhang et al., 2024). 7.2 Policy and institutional support If we want to make rice-fish symbiosis develop faster and on a larger scale, policy support is indispensable. The national level, local governments, and even international organizations can come forward to formulate some
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