shifting cultivation (slash&burn)


Data type: enumeration list value

Shifting cultivation is here used to describe a type of crop rotation in combination with a fallow land phase which is applied mainly by subsistent farmers in tropical regions. Rain forest is cut down to gain space for growing crops. The biomass that has been cut down is burnt, the ashes serve as nutrition for the crops. The Cultivation period is limited to a few years, as long as the soil does not contain enough nutrition anymore due to nutrition wash out by tropical rain falls. Then the land is left fallow, and secondary vegetation succession takes place. After a certain time, this land undergoes again the cycle of slash and burn practice.