Qimin Yaoshu (Essential Techniques for the Peasantry) is an important agronomic book including 10 volumes written by Jia Sixie in the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-581). Referring to about 200 kinds of ancient books, Qimin Yaoshu offers valuable reference materials.

It was recorded that the methods to bed and foster corn, melon and fruit, vegetable and tree, the methods to raise livestock, poultry and fish, the methods to make alcohol, soy sauce, vinegar, skilly, cake, meal, maltose and sugar, the methods to boil mucus, and the methods to make brush pen and sumi. In the final part it listed many kinds of vegetable, melon and fruit that would not grow in northern China. The book summed up production experience of agriculture and stockbreeding before the sixth century in areas from the Yellow River to the Huaihe River. It also suggested that agriculture should take every production factor into overall consideration and pay special attention to every step in the production process. Qimin Yaoshu provides important historical materials for the research on the production and the society of the Northern Dynasty (386-581).