Age-old agricultural values and lifestyles in step with the seasons A bring prosperity to nation’s countryside. Zhao Ruixue reports
As China pushes to modernize its countryside, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has turned to thousand-year-old farming traditions to spearhead rural vitalization.
According to research unveiled by the ministry during a national conference on rural civilization in Linyi, Shandong province, in July, four ancient concepts — agriculture (nong), people (min), timeliness (shi) and harmony (he) — account for over 80 percent of China’s core agricultural heritage values.
These four concepts have been summarized as the core spirit of China’s agricultural cultural heritage: valuing agriculture, putting people at the center, following seasonal farming cycles, and upholding harmony and unity.
Experts and local leadership across the country are proving that ancient ecological wisdom and traditional craft can serve as active economic engines for contemporary rural development.
In a willow-weaving workshop in Linshu county, Shandong, 70-yearold Yang Jinbang twists pliable willow twigs into a small gourd, his hands never pausing as he speaks.
“This variety of willow is planted at the Spring Equinox and harvested at the Minor Heat. This seasonal rule is the most basic experience summed up by our ancestors from agriculture, and we are still benefi ting from it,” he told a group of tourists.
Yang practices twist weaving, an CHINA DAILY 3 ancient local technique historically tied to rural production.
We have woven agricultural utensils for more than a thousand years, including baskets for storing hay and harvesting grain,” Yang said. “The weaving skills serving agricultural work gradually formed an agricultural heritage, and we kept upgrading products to fi t modern life,” he said.
Today, local producers make dozens of categories of products, from baskets and furniture to garden decor.
Yang’s workshop is a prime example of the national e ort to position agricultural heritage not as a museum display, but as a wellspring for modern livelihoods.
In Yuanyang county, Yunnan province, ancient landscape management is yielding massive economic returns.
“Agricultural culture is not frozen in time. It is the living source of rural vitalization,” said Pu Rong, deputy head of Yuanyang in the Honghe Hani and Yi autonomous prefecture.
For over 1,300 years, local people have carved terraced rice fi elds into the mountainsides, creating a unique agricultural ecosystem integrating forests, villages, terraces and waterways.
Yuanyang’s Hani terraces hold three international titles — a UNESCO World Heritage listing, a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems designation, and World Heritage Irrigation Structures recognition.
Pu said villagers have kept alive traditional agricultural practices such as water diversion and distribution with slotted timber, regular ditch patrols and sustainable forest management.
This eco-friendly agricultural model has brought concrete economic benefi ts to local people. Li Wenliang, a local farmer, has experienced this transformation personally.
“In the past, I only grew rice, and life was di cult,” he said.
Today, his fields support a ricefi sh-duck integrated farming system. This model now spans about 6,700 hectares across the county.
The local government has also transformed traditional agricultural celebrations such as harvest festivals into cultural tourism attractions, boosting rural incomes.
Pu said: “We are not only protecting the natural environment and scenery. We are keeping this living landscape alive, which in turn sustains our people.”
Cao Xingsui, deputy director of the national expert committee on Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, said Yuanyang is a global model of agricultural civilization and proof that ecological integrity and human prosperity can reinforce each other.
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