Mitigating risks of hybrid rice use in terrace agriculture

Abstract

The Honghe Hani Rice Terraces of Yunnan Province have become a national emblem for China and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but some are beginning to crumble. This research attempts to address why this is happening and what can be done about it. Previous work has failed to adequately address the possible shortcomings of recently introduced seed and water management technologies, their particular effect on rice terraces and the people who depend upon them. In an effort to better understand the issue, field observation was triangulated with in-depth interviews with local people, and the examination of scientific literature. To do this, the authors spent time in China with a translator in a key village known to be first in the area to truly succeed in carving the rice terraces and in making the mountain slope irrigation system required actually working. Results validated by experts in each field indicate that while the new seed and technologies do save water and improve lives, paired with migration, they may also be threatening the long-term viability of rice terracing in the region. The authors conclude that an integrated approach is needed and put forward a strategic blueprint to reinforce ecological, social and economic longevity. They also call for more research into the applicability of these resilience measures in other hybrid rice terracing regions, such as in the Philippines and Vietnam.

Keywords

Hybrid rice / Rice terraces / Agroecology / Agroforestry / Slope agriculture / Landslides

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Caleb Chu, Érine Gagnon and Marilyn McComb Kahn for their language assistance, Drs Geng Yi, Shizhou Yang and Xiaoqin Dao at the Yunnan Nationalities University for their assistance coordinating data collection, and Prof. Xiaoyun Zheng at the Yunnan Think Tank for his orientation to the ethnopolitical context of water history and management practices in the region.

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi: 10.1016/j.geosus.2022.11.002.

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