An overall perspective of rice-fish research and development in Asia is given through a country analysis and highlights of research. Existing and potential rice-fish areas, and rice-fish system characteristics and their performance in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are pre­ sented. Similarly, highlighted are research findings on production systems, indigenous knowledge, effects on rice yield and pesticide management. Country analysis shows that rice-fish systems presently occupy only a very small percentage of the potential area. The wide array of systems that exist can be broadly characterized by field design, growing period and fish species. Three types of field design are common: trench within the ricefield, pond or sump within or adjacent to the ricefield, and deepwater ricefield. Two types of growing periods, concurrent with the rice and rotational after the rice, are found. Carp, tilapia, silver barb, snakeskin gourami and prawns are grown. Research on productions systems revealed that while most systems are for growout operations, ricefields are also suitable for nursery operations. in many cases, especially where traditional systems exist, researchers have found that farmers have more knowledge about rice-fish culture than researchers. Rerearch has also found that modest increases of 10 to 20% are to be expected in rice yields when fish are cultured in ricefields. While overuse of pesticides has limited fish culture in ricefields, research findings indicate that proper application, selection of chemicals and integrated pest management (1I'M) strategies can overcome this constraint.