Historical development of agroforestry in China

Abstract

In China both agriculture and agroforestry originated in forests and developed side by side from their very beginnings. As revealed by archaeological evidence from ancient times, ancestral Chinese inhabited forests where they sheltered themselves from external hazards and lived on the edible parts of plants and animals through hunting and gathering activities.

As early as the New Stone Age (7000–8000 years B.C.), fire was commonly used to burn the forests for slash-and-burn cultivation, which is a primitive form of agroforestry. Along with the rapid growth of population, the annexing of tribes, the collapse of clan society and the development of the slavery system, the nomadic mode of slash-and-burn farming evolved into settlement farming in the Xia Dynasty (2000-1600 B.C.). Peasants then engaged in settled cultivation.

During the Shang and West Zhou Dynasty (1600-800 B.C.), perpetual settlement farming encouraged the development of private land-ownership. Peasants planted trees in or around the crop fields and grew fruit plants, vegetables and farmed domestic animals in their home yards for self-sufficiency. Since then, various forms of agroforestry have gradually developed and laid the fundamental framework of the Chinese small-farming economy for more than 3000 years.

There has been a rapid growth of population in China over since the 1950s. At the same time, the area of arable land has decreased drastically and the environment has degraded rapidly as industrial development has taken place. The traditional labour-consuming and ineffective agroforestry management practices have not adapted to the current situation. In view of economic, ecological and social benefits, conversion of mono-biological production into a trinity system of agriculture, processing and marketing is suggested and planned experimentally. Such a management system, known as modern agroforestry, could be very beneficial to the development of modern China's rural economy and environmental conservation.