With room for a view, a lone farmer and his water buffalo plow a paddy prior to planting in the famous Honghe Hani rice terraces in China’s southern Yunnan Province. Built into the side of the Ailao Mountains by the Hani minority some 1,300 years ago, the dramatic terraces cover more than 270 square miles in four counties, with about a quarter of the area designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site to honor the traditional rice-growing culture of the region. Women from the nearby villages collect rice seedlings for transplanting into the larger terraces, where they also raise carp in the paddies, while ducks provide insect control and fertilizer. Long eschewed by modern Chinese farmers, thetraditional rice-fish-duck system of rice cultivation is getting a second look as a more sustainable means of production, conserving water, soil, and biodiversity, while reducing chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The labor necessary to farm this way, however, is hard to find. Between 1987 and 2012, more than half of China’s population moved from rural areas to cities looking for better-paying jobs in factories, leaving mostly elderly farmers behind. The terraces seen here have been maintained for agrotourism. Nearby, a growing number of the famous terraces now lie fallow.
