Shifting Cultivation
By: Emma Dziengeleski
What is it?
Shifting cultivation is practiced in much of the world's tropical, or A, climate regions, in which tend to have relatively high temperatures and abundant rainfall. It is practiced by roughly 250 million people, especially those in the tropical rain forests of Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Where?
Who?
People tend to live in small villages and grow food on the surrounding land, which the village controls. The chief of leading council give a patch of land to each family and allow it to retain the output. The villagers have also had the right to own/protect certain trees that surround their village
Slash-And-Burn Agriculture
Farmers sometimes clear land for planting by slashing vegetation and burning debris.
Plantation Farming
Most are located in the tropics and subtropics, including Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
The Kayapo
The Kayapo, the people of Brazil's Amazon tropical rainforest, do not arrange crops in rectangular fields and rows. They rather plant in concentric rings
Commercial or Subsistence?
Shifting cultivation is an example of subsistence farming.
Importance?
The importance of shifting cultivation is that is a certain type of agriculture in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned and allowed to revert to their natural cultivation. Then the cultivators move to another plot.
Shifting Cultivation takes place in Less Developed Countries
Environmental Effects
- More than 6% of tropical rain forests have been converted to shifting cultivation across all the tropical countries
- After using certain plots for agriculture; they then leave areas of land fallow and permit them from to return to their natural condition
- The land is increasingly deteriorating--this leads to deforestation and loss of biodiversity on the environment
Facts
- Predominant crops include upland rice in Southeast Asia, corn & cassava in South America, and millet & sorghum in Africa. Yams, sugarcane, plantain, and vegetables are also grown on some regions
- Concentric Rings include sweet potatoes and yams in the inner area, and the outermost ring contains papaya, bananas, pineapple, mango, cotton, and beans
- Cultivated for 1-5 years, and then abandoned as soil fertility and crop yields fall and weeds encroach
- Has been replaced by logging, cattle ranching, and the cultivation of cash crops
- Are intertwined with other social, religious, political, and various folk customs
Land
It occupies about 1/4 of the world's land area, a higher percentage than any other type of agriculture. However, less than 5% of the world's people engage in shifting cultivation. These developing countries have been pressured to restrict fury destruction of tropical rainforest, and have sent forest reserve. (Bolivia: 1.5 million hectares and Brazil's Amazon rainforest has increased to about 3.1 million hectares of deforestation since 2000)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGnze6x0ZBI
Personal Connections?
Well shifting cultivation crops include pineapple and sweet potatoes, and those are two foods I like very much!