Terracing and Wet Rice Agriculture

Population and Agriculture

Arable (Farming) Land It is a well known fact that China is the most populous nation in the world. China's total population of 1,335,000,000 nearly exceeds the combined populations of Europe (830,400,000) and South America (382,000,000) and the United States (308,333,000) and Japan (127,200,000). By comparison, the population of the United States is equivalent to only 23% of China's population.

Such a huge population imposes substantial stress on the country's natural resources, especially arable land. Although China ranks fourth in the world in terms of total arable land, the pressure of population on this precious available agricultural land is acute and makes China's struggle to increase its agricultural output to feed its population all the more difficult. Looking at the map of China's agricultural regions and crops, you will see that China's arable land is primarily in the eastern region, the same area where a majority of China's vast population is concentrated. In addition to extensive areas of western China which are relatively uninhabited, substantial portions of southern China are unfavorable for agriculture because of mountainous topography. There are significant variations from province‐to‐province in terms of cultivated land, multiple‐ cropping, and overall production of various crops.

China feeds 19.65% of the world's population on approximately 7% of the world's arable land.

Viewing a map showing the U.S. and China superimposed, it is clear that China has only a slightly larger land area, 3.69 million square miles compared to the 3.68 million square miles of the United States. However, while approximately 40% of the U.S. land can be cultivated, only 11% of China's land is arable. Much of the arable land in the United States, of course, is actually not used for farming but instead is used for pasture or has been developed for other uses.

Like China, the U.S. has a densely populated east coast. Unlike the U.S., however, China's farmland is not concentrated in a relatively underpopulated central section of the country. Of the roughly 300 million people in the U.S., less than 3% are engaged in farming while the U.S. has about 80% more farmland than does China and 10 times more farmland per capita.

Despite China’s high population density, China is not a majority urban society even though its total urban population (534 million people; 40% of the population) far exceeds the actual total population of the United States. (The urban population of the U.S. is approximately 246 million, some 80% of the country's total; many Americans, of

course, live in suburban communities.) Although 60% of China's population is still primarily engaged in agriculture and living in rural areas, these same farming areas have undergone substantial industrialization and commercialization in recent decades.

Terracing and Irrigation. At least as significant as major engineering works like the Grand Canal and the Great Wall are the countless alterations of China's physical landscapes by centuries of human effort. These human modifications traditionally focused on terracing hill slopes and controlling water via irrigation as well as reclaiming marginal land. In managing natural resources and expanding opportunities for the production of food, the Chinese have reclaimed, even created, land that in many areas of the world would have been considered impossible to farm.

Creating level land through terracing of hill slopes.

Throughout the rugged areas of northern and southern China, farmers over the centuries have sculpted the hilly land into step‐like landscapes of terraces. Sometimes terraces are relatively natural features that need only be modified in order to produce level areas for planting, while in others extraordinary efforts must be carried out to move earth and rock, stabilize retaining walls, and create sluices for controlling the flow of water. Drainage control and water storage are as important as the level land itself.

Managing water resources in order to reduce erosion and make water available for terraced rice production.

Seen from the air, much of China glistens with countless water surfaces that have been created by human labor. The building of terraces on slope land not only creates level land but also provides a means of "managing" rainwater by controlling its runoff. As rain falls on hill slopes, it tends to erode them relatively easily, but when the velocity of the water is slowed because it is impounded in irrigated fields erosion is reduced. The impounded water then can be controlled as it flows gently from a higher level to a lower level. As water falls from level terrace to terrace, the speed with which the water flows beyond the fields where it is needed is minimized. Usually fine silt is suspended in the flowing water that then is deposited in the lower fields rather than being carried farther away. Besides the obvious irrigation systems that are fundamental to terraced rice production, other systems control water flow and drainage on adjacent paddy fields that are nearly at the same level. Small‐scale and large‐scale water conservancy projects continue to be important means of increasing crop production as well as reducing flood and drought.

Source: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ Accessed March 20, 2008

Wet Rice Agriculture

In wet rice agriculture, seeds are sown in small seedbeds; the seedlings are then transplanted one by one to prepared paddy fields. While the plants are maturing, they must be kept irrigated, but as the rice ripens the fields are drained. The rice is then harvested and threshed by hand. Wet rice agriculture is labor‐intensive, meaning that many people are required to do the job (as in the cultivation of silk worms and tea).

Labor is particularly important when the fields are prepared, seedlings transplanted, and again when the rice is harvested. At these times, increasing the number of people working can significantly increase the amount each field can produce. In some areas a farmer can increase productivity by double or triple cropping (2 or 3 crops of rice) each year, a technique that requires even greater concentrations of labor because the harvesting of one crop and the transplanting of the next crop occur virtually simultaneously. At other times during the winter or while the rice is maturing, the demand for labor is greatly diminished. Traditionally, Chinese farmers, with their families as their labor force, put everyone to work in the field when labor was needed.

During slack periods women and younger children could do other work for the family, including handicraft production.

Traditional agricultural methods and population growth are thus closely related. As the amount produced increased, population increased. As population increased, the added labor led to increased production. The more workers available to help in the field the more rice one field could produce, so it was to a family's advantage to have many sons (since daughters married out of the family, they generally were not considered assets).

High infant mortality and the reliance of aged parents on their children for support reinforced the ideal of the large family. At the same time, the larger the family, the more rice the farm had to produce in order to feed them. Consequently, the best chance a Chinese peasant had to improve his life was to have a large family, intensify the family effort to cultivate rice, then use whatever extra income they were able to produce to buy more land until he owned just as much land as the whole family, working together, could farm at maximum productivity. In some cases, even more land might be purchased for rental to tenants.

Source: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ Accessed March 20, 2008