Woad cultivation by one of China’s most vulnerable communities could provide a way forward.

In China, four decades of reform and opening-up have created conditions allowing a staggering 800 million Chinese citizens to rise out of extreme poverty. In 2018, real per capita household disposable income in the hyper-modern financial hubs of Shanghai and Beijing reached over CNY 60,000 (almost USD 8500), a figure approximately quadruple what is reported in China’s underdeveloped, landlocked regions.

Yunnan Province, located in Southwestern China, is one of these underdeveloped regions. Its countryside features imbricated rice terraces etched into the hillsides by locals who have relied on livelihood strategies that have sustained the land and people for generations.  

This vertiginous terrain poses considerable challenges for the development of roads and power lines in the region; a highly vulnerable highland ecosystem is in urgent need of national conservation efforts; and decentralised ethnic communities with disparate cultures, customs and languages make intra-regional cooperation difficult. Consequently, many poorer, remote households lag behind the economic progress of larger population centres like Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan.

Nonetheless, progress is being made. Government subsidies, infrastructure projects and increased private investment in rural industries are paying off.

In a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics in August 2019, the total number of people in Yunnan classified as experiencing ‘extreme poverty’ — defined using an income-based standard of USD 2.30 per day or CNY 2800 per year — dropped to 1.79 million in 2018. This has effected drastic change in the lives of the people, whose traditional livelihood strategies are being uprooted by astonishing economic and social transformations.

However, despite rising incomes, an increasing disparity between men’s and women’s incomes continues to hamstring poverty alleviation.

In a World Agroforestry (ICRAF) Working Paper from 2015, the authors argued that ‘women are increasingly becoming custodians of local knowledge around land-use change, water management, disasters, and coping strategies to respond to agricultural impacts.’ The authors further concluded that household livelihoods can positively benefit from increased exchanges between women and expert knowledge.

The notion that women have a more dynamic role to play at the intersection of local and expert knowledge was at the heart of a collaborative project between the Centre for Mountain Futures, a joint lab managed by World Agroforestry’s East and Central Asia Regional Programme, Kunming Institute of Botany and L’Oreal (China). L’Oreal generously funded the project while the Centre for Mountain Futures was responsible for its implementation.

Targeting rural villages in Honghe County, Yunnan Province, the project assessed efforts to alleviate poverty and their gender-differentiated impact, promoted the holistic development of the surrounding mountainous region and demonstrated the potential of cultivating woad (Isatis tinctoria) for supplementing rural incomes and strengthening rural industries. The root of the plant, commonly referred to as ‘banlangen’ (‘woad root’ or, sometimes, ‘radix isatidis’) in Mandarin, is reputed for its antiviral properties and vivid blue dye, indigo (a lower concentration than that of ‘true indigo’, Indigofera tinctoria).

Haiya Zhang, executive assistant to the regional coordinator at ICRAF East and Central Asia office, played a key role in drafting the project proposal. Zhang explained that that the interests of the Centre for Mountain Futures and L’Oreal had a high degree of alignment in the project as both parties wished to ‘learn about the environmental implications of the changes occurring in indigo plantations and the application of indigo in modern society’.

For L’Oreal, there was significant interest in cooperating with rural ethnic women to couple indigenous handicraft artistry with product packaging. The project thus placed gender-related questions at the nexus of the research framework: ‘To what degree can women be involved in the project? Can it lead to increased income for rural women? Is it in their interests to be a part of this project and further develop the indigo hand-dye sector’?

From June to September 2017, Xiang Gao, associate researcher at Yunnan Nationalities Museum, and Yujie Li, a joint collaborator, conducted fieldwork in over 20 villages along the Honghe River, systematically categorising the disparate dyeing and weaving techniques of the different ethnic sub-branches while also generating important data regarding the classification and protection of plant-based dyeing as intangible cultural heritage.

The Hani people, one of China’s poorest ethnic minority groups, have inhabited the Ailao Mountains near the Honghe River for generations. Historically, Hani households have planted Levant cotton (Gossypium herbaceum L.). Men tilled fields and women wove textiles. This division of labour is the basis for Hani women’s mastery of complex weaving skills. Large-scale cotton importation in the 1980s obviated the need for household cotton cultivation, leading to a sharp decrease in textile knowledge in the younger generation of women.

Before the 1970s and the widespread introduction of synthetic chemical dyes, these households also planted woad under forest canopies, in vegetable gardens and in private forests. This suggests age-old agroforestry practices in the region reliant upon the marriage of local ecological knowledge and traditional dyeing customs. Moreover, plant-based dyes have environmental advantages over synthetic dyes: the raw materials can be sustainably regenerated and the dyes are biodegradable, with low levels of toxicity.

In the dozens of interviews carried out over the course of their investigation, Gao and Li discovered that the black and blue colours were important cultural markers for riverside people, most of whom belonged to the Hani ethnic group.

Locals produced these two colours, hallmarks of the indigenous aesthetic, using traditional plant-dyeing techniques.

The team also unearthed evidence that plant-based dyes have been used to create other colours. For example, in Haza Village, it was learned that before the 1950s, locals collected a plant known in the Hani dialect as ‘red indigo’. Green dye was also produced. However, owing to environmental degradation and severed knowledge chains, these colours are rapidly disappearing from the indigenous aesthetic.

Despite this trend, the researchers were surprised to hear many of their interlocutors express a willingness to learn new plant-based dyeing techniques and experiment with other colours. When queried about the potential of exploring novel dyeing techniques as a means of supplementing rural women’s incomes, Gao replied, ‘The youth are very curious and eager to learn more about multi-colour dyeing. Whether or not it increases income depends upon market needs and the quality of the craftsmanship’.

Market needs and quality control aside, education is an additional factor limiting industry growth. Gao commented that although many of the Hani girls who were interviewed were interested in learning more about multi-colour dyeing, they also said that they ‘lacked educators in this field’, indicating a critical need for the preservation and dissemination of this traditional knowledge carried by the older generation of Hani women.

All of this indicates a region ripe with potential for industry innovation. But what would such development look like?

Historical precedents offer us some lessons. Under 14th-century Ming rule, Han immigrants (China’s dominant ethnic group) from the Central Plains brought new technologies and skills into the Ailao Mountains. The infusion of these advanced tools helped modernise indigenous agricultural practices, leading to robust harvests and economic growth. Additionally, in an 18th-century historical record of the region commissioned by the Qing Dynasty emperor, Qianlong, we find the exhortation to ‘plant less grain and more woad’.

Notwithstanding current potential and historical precedents, Gao and his team cautioned against over-optimism. Several barriers must be overcome for the home dye industry to thrive once more.

First, the distribution of material commodities needs to be rethought, as the rise in cash-crop cultivation, the import of foreign dyes and fabrics and lack of contact between minority settlements and outside traders impede broader marketisation. Gao recommended first developing the production and trade of woad and textiles at the township level before expanding outward.

Next, quality varied significantly in finished products because traditional handicraft skills vary on an individual basis. For example, in textiles, discrepancies in woven yarn, based upon the ability of the weaver, can result in different breaking points in the fabric. The team posited that modern machinery has a role to play here, potentially standardising some stages of the production chain.

Finally, universal education, diversified information-spreading technologies and increased contact with the outside world via rural–urban migration have brought up a new generation of minority women with a new set of cultural values and aesthetic considerations. A balance must be struck between preserving traditional methods and aesthetics while simultaneously integrating modern elements into the design and production processes.

Despite these challenges, Zhang remains hopeful. ‘Now,’ she remarked, ‘the local county government is starting to look more at the indigo-dyeing process’, whereas in the past they largely focused on embroidery.

She further believes that luxury brands can form mutually beneficial relationships with ethnic rural communities because ‘high-class art and expensive luxury commodities go really well together… Steady demand would be wonderful for them’.

These women, she explained, are up to the challenge.

‘Most of the men are away in Honghe because of the migrant labour situation, so increasing the income of rural women would definitely help them support the elderly and children in their village’.

The involvement of key stakeholders like government agencies and private companies is certainly cause for celebration. Whether or not this translates into income for producers remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: with growing interest from diverse stakeholders, a colourful future seems to be in store for the Hani women of Honghe.

Read the working paper

Grumbine ER, Nizami A, Rana Tharu B, Salim MA, Xu JC. 2015. Mobilizing hybrid knowledge for more effective water governance in the Asian Highlands. ICRAF Working Paper 197. Kunming, China: World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) East and Central Asia.

World Agroforestry (ICRAF) is a centre of scientific and development excellence that harnesses the benefits of trees for people and the environment. Knowledge produced by ICRAF enables governments, development agencies and farmers to utilize the power of trees to make farming and livelihoods more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable at multiple scales. ICRAF is one of the 15 members of the CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. We thank all donors who support research in development through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund.