Shifting Cultivation, also known as slash-and-burn agriculture, is when farmers clear land by slashing vegetation and burning forests and woodlands to create clear land for agricultural purposes.
The Process:
First, farmers have to find a designated spot where they want to plant, somewhere that is close to their villages or settlements. Before they can plant, they have to remove the plants and vegetation that normally covers the land. Using axes and machetes, farmers cut down most of the tall trees, which normally help bring down the smaller tress. Next the farmers burn the debris under carefully controlled conditions. Whenever it rains, the rain comes and washes the fresh ashes into the soil, providing the needed nutrients. The cleared area, is known as a swidden. The cleared land can support crops only up to three years or less. After those three years, the soil nutrients are rapidly depleted and the land becomes too infertile to nourish crops. When the swidden is no longer fertile, the villagers and farmers find a new site to begin clearing out. They leave the old site uncropped for many years, allowing it to go back to its normal vegetation state, this could take up to twenty years.
Crops Of Shifting Cultivation:
Most families grow for subsistence purposes, just to eat and live, so one swidden might have a large variety of crops. In other cases, the crops grown by each village vary by local customs and taste. The predominant crops include upland rice in Southeast Asia, maize (corn) and manioc (cassava) in South America, and sorghum in Africa. Yams, sugarcane, plantain, and vegetables are also grown in some regions. These crops have originated in one region of shifting cultivation and have diffuses to other regions in recent years.
What Type Of Climate?
Shifting cultivation is practiced in much of the world's Humid Low-Latitude, or "A" climate regions, which have relatively high temperatures and abundant rainfall. Shifting cultivation is practiced by nearly 250 million people, especially in the tropical rain forests of South America, Central and West Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Benefits and Drawbacks of using Shifting Cultivation Today?
Shifting cultivation is slowly being replaced by logging, cattle ranching, and the cultivation on cash crops because land devoted to shifting cultivation is declining in the tropics at a rate of about 75,000 square kilometers. The amount of the the Earth's surface allocated to tropical rainforests has been reduced to less that half of its original area.
To its critics, shifting cultivation is just a step in economic development. Pioneers use shifting cultivation to clear forests in the tropics and to open land for development where permanent agriculture never existed. People unable to find agricultural land elsewhere can migrate to the tropical forests and initially practice shifting agriculture. Critics say that it should then be replaced by more sophisticated agricultural techniques that can yield more per land area. Large scale destruction of the rain forests are contributing to global warming. When large numbers of trees are cute, their burning and decay release large volumes of carbon dioxide.
Defenders of shifting cultivation consider it the most environmentally sound approach for the tropics. Practices used in other forms of agriculture, such as fertilizers and pesticides an permanently clearing fields, may damage the soil, causing sever erosion, and upset balance.
To its critics, shifting cultivation is just a step in economic development. Pioneers use shifting cultivation to clear forests in the tropics and to open land for development where permanent agriculture never existed. People unable to find agricultural land elsewhere can migrate to the tropical forests and initially practice shifting agriculture. Critics say that it should then be replaced by more sophisticated agricultural techniques that can yield more per land area. Large scale destruction of the rain forests are contributing to global warming. When large numbers of trees are cute, their burning and decay release large volumes of carbon dioxide.
Defenders of shifting cultivation consider it the most environmentally sound approach for the tropics. Practices used in other forms of agriculture, such as fertilizers and pesticides an permanently clearing fields, may damage the soil, causing sever erosion, and upset balance.