Chinese Terraced Systems: the Sustainable Heritage of Traditional Agricultural Knowledge
Terrace landscapes are the outcomes of intense human-nature interactions, forming own ecological systems that enable farmers to conduct agriculture in adverse environments. In China, these centuries-old systems are partly recognized as Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, but generally suffer from societal and environmental changes, such as market, technology and climate change. How can local knowledge be preserved under these changes, and how does it serve farmers’ present practices? These questions are at the core of my current research. A first case study led me to the Shexian Dryland Terrace System in Northern China.
Terraced landscapes are human-shaped ecological systems consisting of networks of terraced areas. They are the outcomes of long-term and particularly intense human interventions into the environment, fundamentally reshaping the landscape. Their conditions, creation and maintenance, on the other hand, have shaped local people’s lives for centuries, contributing to a wealth of traditional indigenous knowledge, which is highly adaptive to local environments. Here, cultural and ecological diversity go hand in hand. Today, however, both are more and more endangered by diverse processes accompanying globalization and modernization.
In China, terraced systems can be found in different regions and are maintained for the production of varying agricultural products, such as millet, Chinese red pepper, rice and tea.
Local farmers depend on this special kind of ‘vertical’ land management in order to be able to cultivate food and to make a living in particularly remote mountainous areas, with barren soils and complex topographical structures that make it difficult to practice cultivation.
Today, there is an awareness for the value of such terrace systems, resulting in their recognition as agricultural heritage. In China, seven of them are listed among the China Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (CN-NIAHS) until 2020. At a global scale, five terrace systems are currently (and until 2020) designated as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) by the UN-FAO initiative (http://www.fao.org/giahs). The Shexian Dryland Terrace System, which represents the site of my first case study, is currently in the process of application concerning its recognition.
People’s life stories as a research motivation
During an early research training on social memory in Dryland Terrace Systems in North China from 2015 onwards, I got in touch with this kind of landscapes for the first time.
I encountered local farmers struggling with earning a living, forced to use overdue chemical fertilizers and pesticides in their poor-soil land, while the young generation was escaping from a remote agricultural life to find a non-agricultural job in the cities.
Until today, these processes lead to an increase in land abandonment and other phenomena that endanger people’s traditional lifestyles and rural sustainable development.
During this research training, I came very close to farmers’ individual situations and encountered a wealth of exciting and touching life stories. Based on my background in rural sociology, I thus developed an interest in studying the potentials of and threats to indigenous agricultural knowledge, in order to serve the community renaissance in terraced agricultural systems.
Sustainable rural development from a socio-cultural perspective
While eating food and enjoying life without farming myself, I am still haunted by certain topics that came up during my fieldwork interviews, particularly by the farmers’ life stories and their sighs of despair. What could I contribute to food safety, sustainable agriculture and poverty alleviation in rural areas? How can local farming be saved from land abandonment, and how can farmers’ agricultural practices be preserved?
What does sustainable development mean under these conditions?
Following these interests and feelings of confusion, I decided to continue my studies in rural sociology with the development of a social-ecological approach to deal with these urgent issues. Thus, my research is not only motivated by following up on a career or by my own private interests, but based on the friendships I developed with local people and on my intention to support them.
Understanding farming practices and changes through people’s own words
One of the first steps of my research already took me to the field: In order to get in-depth insights into local people’s culture, I drew on an anthropological approach, conducting interviews with farmers in Wangjinzhuang Village in Shexian County in the North of China, a dryland terraced area in the Taihang Mountains. My questions concerned their local farming practices, the measures they took to adapt to the social-ecological changes — and their own perspectives on the future of their agricultural heritage.
The resulting farmers’ testimonies offered a rich and detailed picture of rural farming life in the Taihang Mountains.
Through their narrations, it was possible to gain a deeper understanding of their (knowledge of) traditional farming practices in this dryland terrace system, and particularly of the changes it is currently undergoing.
One of my further objectives, however, was to trigger their own and others’ awareness for the value of their indigenous knowledge with regards to sustainable rural development. At the same time, I had the expectation that the collective research activities that accompanied my research (for example, a participatory activity on biocultural diversity with local farmers, supported by the government and Oxfam Hong Kong), might motivate the participants to work together in preserving the terrace landscape as well as their local community structures.
Covid-19 and plans for further research
In the course of the year 2020, it became more and more obvious that my plans for further research would have to be changed significantly under the conditions of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, instead of travelling to China again to conduct further interviews, I am currently in the process of adapting my research outline.
A further issue I am planning to consider relates to crop structures: Under the conditions of changing demands on capitalist markets, local farmers are more or less forced to react by focusing on the cultivation of so-called ‘cash crops’ that have a high profitability. This is not only changing their traditional crop compositions, but also affecting the landscape morphology as well as the ways local people view the value of their agricultural practices.
In terraced systems, as well as in other agricultural systems around the world, the change in crop structures is a major transformation that farmers are facing, which may change their traditional ways of practicing agriculture and endanger the traditional knowledge systems they have developed over centuries.
In my next story, I’ll report on the deeper insights into local farmers’ life experiences in the Shexian Dryland Terrace System, as well as on the results of my fieldwork. I hope this story motivates you to join our action of preserving indigenous knowledge and community structures in rural areas!
