The Rice Paddy Agro-Ecosystem

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2013, Nadine Azzu, FAO  "The Youth Guide to Biodiversity" 1st Edition (Chapter 5) Youth and United Nations Global Alliance. Reproduced with permission.

Chapter 5. Verbatim.

A rice paddy is an aquatic ecosystem that houses different types of fish, frogs, plants, insects and soil. For more than 5 000 years, humans have actively managed rice paddies to produce high yields of rice; these rice paddies are called flooded rice agro‑ecosystems.

In some countries, fish are kept in the rice paddy, so that farmers can harvest both rice and fish, which they eat and sell at the market. Similar to other ecosystems, a rice paddy gives and takes: when insects that come to eat the rice crop fall into the water, they become food for fish.