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Explora: Environment
and Resource The Tartary buckwheat industry

from industrial growth, leading to the abandonment of dynasty, buckwheat remains one of the three major crops
traditional crop production and negative impacts on of the Liangshan Yi region today. In high mountainous
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local agroecosystems and food culture. By analyzing the areas, buckwheat is rotated with potatoes and barley,
transformation of buckwheat production methods, this while on the middle slopes, it is rotated with potatoes and
study aims to provide insights into the broader impacts of maize. In 1943, Lin Yaohua led a research team into the
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corporate-led agricultural industrialization on traditional Liangshan hinterland and documented the local buckwheat
farming systems, biodiversity, and rural livelihoods. production method known as “fire-fallow” in his book. 28;58
This mode of farming involved burning mountain areas to
2. Methods fertilize the land and sowing crops without a structured
This study employed a qualitative research approach. plan. It was later reformed by the government.
Data were collected through anthropological fieldwork Before the democratic reforms of 1956, the Liangshan
conducted between 2010 and 2016, including participant Yi society was primarily ruled by separate polities of
observation and semi-structured interviews with farmers, the Black Yi clans. These clans maintained a strict caste
enterprises, traders, and government agencies in Xichang, order based on bloodline using clan organizations and
Zhaojue, Butao, Meigu, and Yanyuan in Sichuan Province, customary laws . Clans are considered to be groups with
2
as well as Kunming and Ninglang in Yunnan Province. To ties of kinship in the paternal line based on a belief in a
gather the most up-to-date information, tracking surveys common ancestor. Agricultural production was mainly
were conducted in the region over the past 2 years, 2023- carried out on a family-run basis. After the democratic
2024. These surveys involved WeChat exchanges with reforms, agricultural production was instead organized
previous respondents, follow-up phone calls, and the and managed by rural collective bodies, such as the
collection of publicly available data from online media. production brigades and people’s communes.
3. Results and discussion According to the recollections of some elders, during
the collective economy period from the 1960s to1970s, a
3.1. Traditional mountain agricultural systems in the 2-year cropping system with three harvests was practiced
Liangshan Yi region
in the area. Spring crops were potatoes and buckwheat;
The Greater Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture (Da winter crops were wheat and oats. After harvesting wheat
Liangshan Yizu Zizhi Zhou) and the Lesser Liangshan in May of the 2 year, farmers would plant a summer crop
nd
Yi Autonomous Prefecture (Xiao Liangshan Yizu Zizhi of broad beans since it was too late to plant spring crops.
Zhou) are the main settlements of the Liangshan Yi Compared to one-season cropping, this three-harvest,
people (autonym: Nuosu). These regions straddle the 2-year system not only increased annual farming income
border between southern Sichuan and northern Yunnan, but also reduced losses from natural hazards through
forming a transition zone between the Qinghai-Tibetan diversification. In addition, this cropping system regulated
Plateau and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Characterized soil nutrients and contributed to biodiversity conservation.
by a mountain landscape of high hilly plateaus, they are In the 1980s, as part of market-oriented reforms, the
located in a biodiversity hotspot 24,25 and are considered the collective economy of China’s rural areas was dismantled.
earliest domestication areas of Tartary buckwheat. Most Instead, the family contract responsibility system for
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Nuosu communities are found between 2,000 to 3,000 m rural land was introduced, and the land was redistributed
above sea level, and their traditional livelihoods rely on a to individual peasant families. Consequently, China’s
combination of dryland farming and livestock husbandry.
agricultural production shifted to a decentralized
Our visit to the Lesser Liangshan Yi Autonomous smallholder model.
Prefecture in the winter of 2011 revealed a landscape of In 2013, fieldwork was conducted in Zhipu village,
high mountains and deep ravines, with solitary villages located in the Liangshan Yi region. This village is situated
nestled among thick forests. On the slopes near the villages on flat land among the mountains at an altitude of over
were banks of loess fields cleared by hand. In early spring, 2,600 m. The village has a total area of farmland of 4,016
these fields would be planted with the region’s staple grain mu (268 ha) and a population of 706 people in 213
crop, Tartary buckwheat (F. tataricum Gaertn.). Locals
call buckwheat “qiaozi” in Chinese and “mgep” in their 2 There were five castes: zimo, nuohe, qunuo, ajia and xiaxi. The
own Yi language. Resilient to cold, drought, and poor zimo was the caste of headmen who dealt with the central
soils, buckwheat is one of the few grain crops capable of Chinese government, known as tusi in Chinese. The nuohe
adapting to the region’s alpine mountain environment. were the Black Yi. The other three castes were all linked to the
Alongside potatoes and maize introduced during the Qing zimo and Black Yi in terms of personal bondage. 29;65-72

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2025) 3 doi: 10.36922/eer.5696