If anyone have seen a steep-sloping hillside? If this is the only land you have to grow crops on, how do you then grow crops without everything sliding down the hillside?

The answer is terrace farming. A terrace is a piece of sloped plane that has been cut into a series of successively receding flat surfaces or platforms, which resemble steps, for the purposes of more effective farming. This type of landscaping, therefore, is called terracing.

Terrace farming is commonly found throughout Asia, and is used when the terrain is particularly hilly or steep. Terraces are made using low walls of earth up the side of the hills, these allow the farmers to make flat areas for planting their crops – the terraces. The terraces act in several ways but especially in allowing the soil to remain in place and water flowing down the hill through natural gravity can be moved and channeled through the terrace setup using a system of small openings and gates to allow different areas to be dry or wet at any one time.

Terraces are often seen in the rice-growing areas of south-east Asia such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam and so on. The Indonesian island of Bali is particularly well-known for large areas of rice terraces, but at higher altitudes the crops in the terraces will be replaced by different crops as rice cannot grow too high.

Well, I am from Nepal an Asian country and I have my experiences of terrace farming. We do have a paddy farm in my village which is about 50 kilometer far from the capital, Kathmandu. We have been using this technique for many years and it is really effective not only that the terrace paddy farm also looks very beautiful.