Characteristics of Irrigation and Drainage Development on the Sanjiang Plain: A Case Study of State Farms

Abstract

The theme of this chapter is elucidating the overall characteristics of the rapid development of irrigation and drainage systems and paddy fields on the Sanjiang Plain. The Sanjiang Plain, formed by the confluence of the Amur River, Ussuri River and Songhua River, is one of the world’s three largest stretches of wetland. Large-scale agricultural development on the Sanjiang Plain started in the twentieth century, at the end of the 1940s. Water conservation projects have always been the key component to agricultural development on the Sanjiang Plain. The entities involved in these projects were stratified: on the first stratum was a national project for comprehensive land development; on the second stratum was the Bureau of Agricultural Reclamation, which manages state farms, and its Agricultural Reclamation Administration branch; and on the third stratum were the laborers-turned-farmers. The existence of these stratified entities was a condition made necessary by the nature of this project, i.e., the development of a large wetland. Situated at a point where three major rivers meet, the Sanjiang Plain is a flood plain, and so major infrastructural development was required, thereby necessitating this national project for flood control. The unique position of the local government, which administers the political as well as the economic machinery of state farms, also contributed to the promotion of agricultural development. It was also the presence of the laborers-turned-farmers, who assumed a superior role and had the economic reserves to make this project successful that helped to stabilize rice production with an underground water irrigation system.