20080316-agri-buffalo nolls.jpg The history of agriculture in China has been one of constantly improving crop yields through innovations, improvements in techniques and intensification. The resulting surpluses have allowed the population to grow.
In late imperial times the agricultural land in the north was worked by people who owned the land while the land in the south was owned by landlords who didn't work the land themselves. Peasant who worked the land either paid for use of the land with a share of their harvest, a fixed rent in crops or a fixed rent in cash. It was more of commercial arrangement than a feudal one.
Agriculture in China is labor intensive. Women do about 60 percent of the work. Animals such as mules, oxen and water buffalo are considered luxuries and most plowing is done with sticks or hoes by farmers in lamp shade hats and rubber boots. Human excrement, urine and even burnt duck feathers are brought into the fields and used for fertilizer.
Chinese farmers are very efficient. In the Guangdong province farmers plant three crops a year: two of rice and one of legumes. The rice paddies also double as fishponds, and the dikes between them are often planted with sugarcane and mulberry trees. Chinese farmers can also be very clever. When the price of carrots went down one farmer found it was more profitable to use the carrots to fatten his pigs, when the price of carrots went up he sold the carrots on the market.
Peasant farmers in the south have traditionally used water buffalo to plow their fields, donkeys to carry goods and treadmills to pump water into irrigation ditches. Theft is sometimes a problem. During harvest time families often sleep in the fields or by their fish ponds.