Friday, August 2, 2013

Small-scale Family Agriculture in Village China 2013: Introduction


(Ken Erickson, Ezhou, July 2013)  Everyone loves to talk about pollution in China. They don't talk about sustainable small farming, which is how much of the country lives. 

Wheat- straw powers the cookstove. Greywater runs from the shower to an infiltration pond, supporting frogs and bugs  Frogs and bugs support ducks and other birds, and bats. Pesticides are too expensive, here, so night time fairly sings with avian and winged mammal life.  

Below the house is a small orchard.  Next to the orchard, a  big kitchen garden.

Below the orchard, terraced fields of row-crops and rice.  First, row-crops of peppers, some tomatoes and pole beans below those.  A rice nursury is at the top level and below that, more rice fields.  As you move down in elevation, a drainage-fed pool supports lotus for lotus root.  And more water for ducks.

A burial mound for the family ancestors is to one side of the families' fields.  



The household earns about $6,000 in a year from the farm. (Since some family members work outside the farm it is not very sensible to talk about farm income in isolation from the wider network of family who can contribute cash resources when needed—that's certainly a longer post, or even a book.  Anyhow, other extended famiy membershave other sources of cash: one is a lawyer, one has a rather wealthy boyfriend, another is a small shopkeeper. 

The house is built of concrete and one room in the house has A/C. There's a television, and afternoon MahJohng. 

Most of the farming is done by the brother of the woman who built the house and his wife.  They works a few hours each morning and afternoon weeding and watering. (Noon time is lunch and a nap).  Next: domestic spaces, and a better description of the micro-vertical zonation of the cropland.