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{{Language-box|english_link= Pond farming | french_link= Pisciculture en étang | spanish_link= Coming soon | hindi_link= Coming soon | malayalam_link= Coming soon | tamil_link= Coming soon | swahili_link=coming soon | korean_link= Coming soon | chinese_link=Coming soon | indonesian_link= Coming soon | japanese_link= Coming soon }}
[[Image:Pond_farming_icon.png|right|80px]]
[[Image:Pond farming.PNG|thumb|right|200px|Sketch diversified pond farming, Bolivia. Drawing: M. Verweij, SNV. Netherlands Water Partnership.]]
“''Before we had these farm ponds we could only farm in the wet season and everybody migrated to make money to survive. Now with these ponds we can work on our own land, year round, and we produce a surplus to sell at the market. These ponds give us hope for our community and children.''” said Máximo Gonzales in the April 1996 issue of the ILEIA Newsletter (Maita and Verweij 1996).
Once water is available, a part of the new farm pond users (about 25% of the farmers in CORACA’s operational area) concentrates on growing crops like onions, tomatoes and potatoes for the market. These market farmers tend to grow one or two crops intensively and then leave the land to lie fallow after the harvest, when the water runs dry. Their production system is intensive and yields are high: more than 40 tons per ha. of tomatoes and 30 tons of onions. Without much help from outside, they sell the produce in their own town as well as in Sucre and Cochabamba. In 1999, when prices of tomatoes were high, tomato farmers earned up to US$1800 from a 2000 square metre plot, spending US$425 on fertilisers, pesticides and transport. They had never before had so much money in their hands and earned back their initial investment in one year! But prices are not always high and increasingly farmers start to feel the economic and ecological problems related to monoculture market farming.
===Manuals, videos, and links===* [http://www.snvworldthewaterchannel.tv/images/watersmartagriculture_CGIAR_2015.pdf Water-Smart Agriculture in East Africa], a collaborative effort by [http://www.care.org/ CARE], [http://globalwaterinitiative.org / GWI], [http://www.snvworldiwmi.cgiar.org/ IWMI], and [http://www.cgiar.org/ CGIAR]. A 321-page sourcebook for improving water management for smallholder farmers. * [https://snv.org/ SNV World]* [http://www.scribdfao.comorg/doc3/18420407i0528e/FAOFarm-Ponds-for-Water-Fish-and-Aquaculture i0528e00.htm Farm ponds for water, fish, and livelihoods.] FAO, 2009.
* [http://www.aqua.stir.ac.uk/public/aquanews/downloads/issue_34/34p10_11.pdf Pond aquaponics: new pathways to sustainable integrated aquaculture and agriculture.]
* [http://journeytoforever.org/farm_pond.html Aquaculture for small farms.]
* Large wiki on water use for agriculture: [http://web.archive.org/web/20151025174729/http://agropedia.iitk.ac.in:80/ Agropedia]
===Acknowledgements===
* [httphttps://wwwedepot.agriculturesnetworkwur.orgnl/magazines/global/lessons-in-scaling-up/towards-sustainable-pond-farming 83456 Towards sustainable pond farming.] Agricultures Network.
* [http://www.spate-irrigation.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/SWHSfinalversion.pdf Smart water harvesting solutions: Examples of innovative, low-cost technologies for rain, fog, run-off water, and groundwater.] Netherlands Water Partnership, 2007.