Nicknamed the Nigiri Project (AKA salmon over rice), the Managed Agricultural Habitat initiative aims to demonstrate that California can have both its fish and its farms—all in one place. And in a state where wildlife abundance has been historically hammered by agricultural abundance, CalTrout has been busy working to put nature back on the menu.

Making room for wild salmon in an agricultural setting is something the organization and various stakeholders have been tinkering with since 2012, beginning on the rice fields of Knaggs ranch in Yolo Bypass, and expanding annually. Research sites have now sprouted throughout the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys.

“By rearing salmon in flooded winter farm fields the project has documented that fat, robust, healthy salmon grow many times more quickly than salmon in adjacent river channels. These results have come from different watersheds (Sacramento, Feather, Cosumnes and San Joaquin); from different water sources, (river water, canal water, ground water); from different kinds of fields (rice, winter wheat, weeds, bare dirt).”

The process works by spreading and slowing floodwaters over the floodplain. Moreover, the fish food is primarily made on the floodplain not in the river. In other words, just as crops convert sunlight and soil nutrients into food for people, fish food is created as sunlight hits the floodplain.

“In winter, when floodwaters spread out over the floodplain, summer plant material becomes available to the aquatic food web, where it’s broken down and turned into bug food. Algae (called phytoplankton by scientists) floating near the surface of floodwaters also uses photosynthesis to convert solar energy into food energy; sunlight makes algae, algae makes bugs, bugs make fish.”

And, the hope, fish make a comeback.

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Tom Bie
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Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

Category: Daily Drake
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Author: Tom Bie

Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

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