Terrace Farming

 

Terrace farming is the practice of cutting flat areas out of a hilly or mountainous landscape in order to grow crops. It is a practice that has been in use from the rice fields of Asia to the steep slopes of the Andes in South America. During rainfall, nutrients in the soil doesn’t go away instead they move down to next step. The flat areas which are cut out helps the soil from losing the essence of nutrients.

 

One of the most important things which is derived from terrace farming is that the amount of land which is kept idle in hilly and mountainous areas is put to best use by growing crops and increasing efficiency of land. Asia is the leading country with the most efficient terrace cultivation. Researchers have been working on bringing terrace farming into action in major countries in Africa.

 

There are few disadvantages involved in terrace farming. One, as it a labor-intensive cultivation so it can be an expensive process if cheap labor is not available. Also, it is not easy to cut out lands on hilly areas, it takes a lot of resources to cut out the lands using labor and maintain those terraces. During rainy season, these terraces can become a lot riskier because of the overflowing water leading to landslides. Overflowing water can wash away important nutrients which are present in the soil to grow quality crops.