shifting agriculture


shifting agriculture

or

slash and burn

a type of nonintensive agriculture, practised in tropical forests where soil fertilities are low. It involves the clearing and burning of existing vegetation in order to cultivate crops. When the soil becomes depleted, or earlier, the society moves on to repeat the process elsewhere, often leaving the forest to regrow. Although perhaps ecologically sound, such forms of agriculture are threatened by economic development. Compare HUNTER-GATHERER.

Shifting Agriculture

 

a primitive system of farming in which a field, after producing several harvests, was left to become weed infested and uncultivated for eight to 15 years. The natural vegetation restored the fertility of the soil.