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Hani and Yi technique of irrigation has always been a secret since their rice terraced fields were built from mountain top to deep valley. Many friends also wrote me asking for the Hani & Yi method of rice cultivation but not until recently I was lucky to locate a valuable essay by Adachi Shimpei. I hope his work helpful to all of us who are willing to learn. Today note is continued from previous post.

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Terraced Rice Cultivation

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be pointed out that rice terrace agriculture in the Ailao Mountains has been sustained by various types of technologies related in particular to irrigation and drainage, which can be considered to be a form of technological adaptation to the local mountain environment characterized by a monsoon climate and prevalence of steep slope of clayey soil. Different from the paddy agriculture in the plains, irrigation and drainage for terraced rice cultivation are important not only for growing crops, but also for preservation of the terraced fields themselves, in close relationship with various farming works.

One of the most unique agricultural practices observed in the Ailao Mountains is year-round irrigation. It is notable that similar practices are found in other famous rice terrace areas in the world. In the Cordillera Mountains in the Philippines and Longsheng County in Guangxi Province of China, water are kept inundated all through the year, even though rice is grown only once a year in most of the fields. In the Kubiki hills in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, terraced fields were plowed and dikes (more than 30 cm tall) were repaired soon after the rice harvest in autumn in order to store melted snow water.

Behind such similarity, there are some common environmental factors peculiar to the rice terrace area. One of the factors is “steep inclination.” Prevention of collapse becomes crucial only when the terraced fields were constructed on steep slopes. Paddy fields on sloping land must be supported by their wide dikes and high dike walls. Huge amounts of work are required for repairing the terrace’s structure. Yasumuro pointes out that crop cultivation on the paddy dike has been highly developed in terraced fields because dikes occupy a significant percentage of the farmland area.

The hydrological environment is also an influential factor in determining the technology. It is known that the catchment area for irrigation water is usually very limited in the rice terrace area, and water tends to be stored in the terraced field in case of water shortage.

Another factor is the prevalence of clayey soil. Koide indicates the relationship between the development of mountain farming and geological conditions in Japan. He points out that landslide areas have favorable conditions for terraced rice cultivation, such as prevalence of fertile, water retentive clayey soil and existence of numerous springs on the mountain slopes. Terraced paddy fields have been constructed since ancient times in such places.

Characteristic technologies that are widely observed in the rice terrace areas have been developed to adapt to such environmental conditions. On the other hand, there are also many differences in technologies among each area. Land preparation works of repeated plowing and harrowing seem to be a variation of Han agricultural technology, which probably originated from ancient upland cultivation in the north China. This contrasts sharply with the cultivation technologies in the Cordillera Mountains, where neither plow nor harrow is used. Being significantly influenced by neighboring cultures, farmers have developed the unique technologies to adapt to the specific environment.

Finally, I will discuss the contemporary issues faced by rice terrace areas. In many of the rice terraced areas, traditional agricultural practices are now being forced to change. For example, terraced paddy fields in the Cordillera Mountains were registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1995. Consequently, many farmers have given up farming in favor of tourism-related jobs or wage labor in towns, and the collapse of abandoned terraced fields has become a major problem. In the rice terrace area of Longsheng County, since tourism development started in the 1990s, most of the terraced fields have been left to dry in the dry season because of over-logging in the water source forests and increasing water demand by hotels and restaurants. The rice terrace area of the Ailao Mountains is also not free from such changes. Accompanied by the penetration of the cash economy and tourism development, it has become increasingly difficult to continue the traditional agricultural practices that have long sustained the rice terrace agriculture. These cases remind us the two important points. One is the fact of how closely the technologies in terraced rice cultivation are related to the ecological environment of the area. The other is the fact that technologies that have sustained the terraced rice cultivation can be maintained only by the farmers’ continuous action on the environment. If they stop working, terraced fields themselves will be lost.

By Adachi Shimpei, ASAFAS, Kyoto University





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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Ando Kazuo, Prof. Ying Shaoting, Mr. Kong Jianxun and graduate students of ASAFAS, Kyoto University for their valuable advice. Thanks are also extended to Dr. Ratan Lal Chakraborty and Dr. Nathan Badenoch for kindly proofreading the manuscript. This research would never have been completed without the generous hospitality of the villagers of Shanlaoqing village. In particular, I would like to thank Mr. Li Yonggui, who helped me as interpreter of the Hani and Yi language during my field survey.

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