What Is Mountain Agriculture? A Detailed Explanation of the Concept and Characteristics

Mountain agriculture refers to the totality of farming activities carried out in the survival and development process on the arable and usable agricultural land in mountainous areas. A mountain agriculture zone is a type of agricultural form distribution area formed under a high-mountain geographical environment. The spatial distribution of cultivated land shows the following characteristics: many plots, small areas, scattered distribution, and an obvious vertical zonal differentiation.

What Are the Characteristics of Mountain Agriculture?

The most notable region of mountain agriculture is Guizhou. Guizhou has neither a vast flat plain nor an endless prairie; it is neither a land of rivers and lakes nor gentle hilly slopes, but a famous "mountain country." The situation of land resources here is: more mountainous land, less flat land; more land suitable for forestry and grazing, a narrow area for farming; more dry land, less paddy field; more low-quality soil, less high-quality soil. Agriculture developed under this special geographical environment is a typical mountain agriculture, and it has the following important characteristics:

1. Differences between small areas are very obvious, different types of agriculture are intermixed with one another, and each is in an extremely scattered state.

2. Within a local scope, because the ecological environment is complex and diverse, low-standard self-sufficient living can be met in different ways, so the foundation of a natural economy is deeply rooted.

3. The relatively isolated environment is not conducive to the improvement of production technology, is extremely conservative, and the production level is generally not high.

4. This special geographical environment, combined with the different livelihood methods of various ethnic groups, has produced different economic and cultural types.

What Are the Development Advantages of Mountain Agriculture?

1. Diverse microclimates, which are conducive to decentralized operation and reducing risk.

2. It is conducive to cultivating special crops that cannot be produced on flat land, such as fruit trees and Chinese medicinal herbs.

3. It is conducive to the local transfer of surplus labor and the rational use of rural land.

What Are the Restrictive Factors of Mountain Agriculture?

1. Land fragmentation is severe, which is not conducive to modern farm-style production.

2. During cultivation, it easily causes soil erosion and fertility decline, and secondary geological disasters such as landslides are prone to occur.

3. Information flow is not smooth, and the flow of product supply and demand information, technical information, and other information is slow.