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Agriculture on the Loess Plateau

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Restoration and Development of the Degraded Loess Plateau, China

Part of the book series: Ecological Research Monographs ((ECOLOGICAL))

Abstract

The Loess Plateau is considered the cradle of agricultural cultivation in China. The climate, ecology and geography of the area have created a unique farming system on the plateau. Agricultural output in the area increased 25-fold from 1980 to 2008, with more profound increases during the last 5 years because of the adoption of modern farming techniques. However, the rapid advances of technology and drastic societal changes (urbanization) have posed new challenges to agriculture on the plateau, such as shortages of water for irrigation and reductions in cultivable land from urbanization and soil erosion. Hence for sustainable agriculture on the plateau, measures such as terraced farming, use of supplemental irrigation, better farm inputs, crop rotation with legumes, and organic farming are recommended.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, 1390 Hamasaka, Tottori, 680-0001, Japan

    Ping An, Tomoe Inoue & Mingqing Zheng

  2. Department of Soil Science, University of Calabar, P.M.B. 1115, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria

    A. Egrinya Eneji

  3. TOELL Co., Ltd., 1-5-21 Takada, Yokohama, 223-8510, Japan

    Shinobu Inanaga

Authors
  1. Ping An
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  2. Tomoe Inoue
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  3. Mingqing Zheng
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  4. A. Egrinya Eneji
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  5. Shinobu Inanaga
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ping An .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan

    Atsushi Tsunekawa

  2. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, Shaanxi, China, People's Republic

    Guobin Liu

  3. Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan

    Norikazu Yamanaka

  4. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, Shaanxi, China, People's Republic

    Sheng Du

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© 2014 Springer Japan

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An, P., Inoue, T., Zheng, M., Eneji, A.E., Inanaga, S. (2014). Agriculture on the Loess Plateau. In: Tsunekawa, A., Liu, G., Yamanaka, N., Du, S. (eds) Restoration and Development of the Degraded Loess Plateau, China. Ecological Research Monographs. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54481-4_5

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