Shifting Cultivation

What is it?Is it a practice of sustainable

agricultural practice?

Shifting Cultivators

• Primitive• Simple farming

techniques

Farming Cycle of Shifting Cultivation

General Farming Methods

• Product - wet rice• deforestation and terraced• water sops the soils• hand transplanting• hand harvesting• product diversification

Discussion

C.O. Sauer, a famous geographer, commented shifting cultivation, ‘in its basic procedure and crop assemblages’ to be ‘… most conservative of fertility at high level of yeids; that being protective and intensive. We might consider it as being fully suited to physical and cultural conditions of the areas where it exists.’

Answer

Yes, nutrients are stored in the biomass. Shifting cultivators burn the trees and unlock the nutrients for the crops. After that, the land is abandoned for the forest to regenerate.

• Why does shifting cultivation become ecological destructive (no longer sustainable farming

practice)?