UNESCO identifies red rice as the principal crop in the Honghe Hani terrace landscape and describes mixed farming involving buffalo, cattle, ducks, fish and eel. The description places rice inside a system that joins fields with animals and water. It does not mean every plot contains every animal. The useful point is the relationship: cultivated terraces are part of a wider landscape of forest, village, water and work. Yuanyang County’s red-rice page attributes an origin account to Hani oral epic and names Wuwan Luopeng village in Majie Township. It also records cultivation area and production figures for 2013. Those figures are a dated snapshot, not a current estimate. The origin story belongs to a living oral tradition as the county account presents it; it should be attributed rather than converted into a verified agronomic date.
From the journal
Fish, Ducks and Buffalo in a Red-Rice Field
Red rice sits within the Honghe Hani terraces’ mixed-farming system, while local reports document seedbed and rice-fish-duck practices.
In the same city · Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture ↗A crop within a larger system
Seedbeds, fish and ducks
A 2025 county report moves from the broad terrace system to named local farming practices. It describes preparation of seedbeds and rice-fish-duck cultivation: fish move through water, while ducks forage in shallow areas and along field edges. The report presents these as practices in specific settings, not a recipe followed by every farmer or proof that all fields have identical ecological results. The crop’s story includes the work that precedes harvest. Seed soaking, nursery beds, channels and field preparation connect agricultural knowledge to water and timing. UNESCO’s broader account adds buffalo and cattle to its picture of mixed farming, while the local report focuses on red rice and fish-duck cultivation. Keeping those scales distinct makes the system easier to understand: one is a heritage-wide description, the other a dated account of particular places and tasks.