Long standing traditional cultures can always inspire modern civilization. While only ten percent of the earth consists of flat land, sixty percent of it is water and thirty percent is mountains. Terraced field farming is actually a possible solution to food shortage.
More than 1200 years ago, the Hani, with the help of primitive tools, created the Terraces along the contour lines on the desolate Ailao Mountains in Yuanyang County. The collective endeavours of the nameless ancestors successfully turned the mountains into 170,000 acres of fields, providing nurture to more than 300,000 villagers today.
Water is essential to farming. Although there is no reservoir in the mountains, the cloud sea and the forest stand as the important water sources for the farming activities there. The Hani regard trees as their guardian gods. Trees can store water. People's respect for trees has in a way protected the water sources in the mountains. The Honghe River below the Ailao range has been supplying moisture to the Terraces for ages - water circulates around the mountains as it vapourizes at the bottom to form clouds and fogs at the top and cools down in the forest to become water droplets and finally streams. Water, together with animal manure as fertilizers, is then collected through canals to irrigate the farmland.
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