South Korea Farming System Declared World Agricultural Heritage

The Republic of Korea's traditional bamboo-based farming system in Damyang Friday was recognized as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System by the United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

RELATED:

North Korea Warns Seoul of Tough Acts Against Provocations

"The site has been regarded as an impressive example of sustainable agriculture approach linking nature and traditional farming practices while respecting the environment", FAO said in a press release.

The farming system consists of a bamboo-based multilayered organization of production where tea trees and mushrooms are inter-cropped with bamboo. Landscape management also includes farmlands, vegetable gardens, rice fields, and water reservoirs.

The program to declare Agricultural Heritage Sites already has 66 distinctions in 22 countries as it was created by FAO to highlights unique ways that rural communities have over generations forged to foster food security, viable livelihoods, resilient ecosystems and high levels of biodiversity, all while contributing to the formation of remarkable landscapes.

The thousand-year-old farming structure also allows protecting the residents of the communities, since bamboo fields form a colony also protecting the villages from the cold winds in winter and the sweltering heat in summer.

The system has also become an identity to the region. Bamboo farmers have systemized their traditional management know-how by establishing traditional ecological knowledge for optimum temperature, rainfall, wind direction, soil type, and depth.

FAO remarks that the Damyang bamboo cultivation plays an important role in preserving the landscape from soil erosion and violent temperature variations.