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.
Irrigation, Water and Agriculture in China
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Foot-powered irrigation Agriculture and irrigation account for large amounts of all water use. Water for irrigation can from wells, rivers, canals, lakes, ponds and reservoirs. Often dams are built to supply water for irrigation. There is 545,960 square kilometers of irrigated land in China. Forty percent of China's crop land is irrigated, compared to 23 percent in India. The average yield per acre in China is double that of India.
Pumps are important for irrigation. In the old days water wheels and manual labor were needed to lift water from wells, rivers, canals and ponds to agricultural land. Now gasoline- and diesel-powered pumps do much of the work. Pumps may be noisy but are a relatively cheap and efficient. Foot-powered pumps, using a 2000-year-old design are being resurrected and used not only in China but in Africa and other parts of world as an ecofriendly that doesn't require a lo of energy and draws water in a sustainable way so as not threaten groundwater supplies.
Studies in South Asia have shown that a traditional treadle water pump---operated by a person on a device that looks a bit like a Stairmaster stair climber---can increases the income of farmers by 25 percent. First introduced to Bangladesh in the 1980s and now widely used in Asia and sub-Sahara Africa, these pumps are easy to install and simple to operate and often deliver higher crops yields than those obtained using diesel pumps.