Shifting cultivation

Also called: Slash and burn agriculture, Jhumming, Jhum cultivation, Slash and burn · Topic: Land Use, Farming Systems and Cropping Seasons in India · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 4 "Agriculture"; Class 11, Ch 6 "Natural Hazards and Disasters: Causes, Consequences and Management"; Class 12, Ch 4 "Primary Activities"

Meaning

Shifting cultivation is a kind of farming where farmers clear a patch of forest (usually by cutting and burning it), grow food crops on it for one or two years until the soil loses its fertility, and then move to a new patch. The old patch is left as fallow (land left uncropped so it can recover).

• It is one of the two kinds of primitive subsistence agriculture (farming mainly to feed the family, with simple tools) in the world.
• It feeds tribal communities in India's hills and forests. As the rest period between clearings gets shorter, it is also a big cause of forest loss, soil erosion and landslides in the north-east.

Explanation

How it works (cause → process → result)

• FAO definition: farming "clearings scattered in the reservoir of natural vegetation (forest or grass-woodland)" and leaving them "as soon as the soil is exhausted" [2].
• In world books it is also called swidden cultivation. Crops are usually grown for one or two years. The plot is then left fallow for a long time before it is cleared again [3].
• Step 1: Clear and burn ("slash and burn")
• Farmers cut the trees and bushes on a forest patch.
• They burn the dried plants.

• The ash adds plant food (nutrients) to the soil, but only for a short time.

• Step 2: Crop

• Farmers grow food crops such as upland rice, maize, millets and vegetables.
• They use simple tools: the hoe, the dao (a large broad knife) and the digging stick.

• They keep growing crops until the soil loses its fertility.

• Step 3: Shift

• Farmers move to a new patch of forest.
• New plants grow on the old patch, and this slowly brings back its fertility.

What it needs and how it fits with other farming

• Conditions it depends on:
• Monsoon rain, because there is no irrigation.
• The soil's natural fertility and the ash, because no fertiliser is added.

• Plenty of forest land, so that each patch can rest for a long time.

• Labour: The family or the community does the work.

• Result: Yields are low, because no fertilisers or other modern inputs are used.
• Where it sits among farming types: It is the primitive subsistence type, which uses the fewest inputs. Next come intensive subsistence, then commercial, then plantation farming.
• Local water systems exist: In the Rinjha caselet (Class 10), a community near Diphu in Assam brings spring water from the hills to its fields through bamboo canals.

The jhum cycle and why it is now a problem

• Jhum cycle: the number of years before a farmer comes back to the same patch.
• It used to be 15-20 years.
• It is now often only 3-5 years.

• Cause: more people and less forest land.

• Short fallow → soil does not recover

• The forest has no time to grow back.

• Soil fertility is not restored.

• Bare slopes + heavy monsoon rain → soil erosion and landslides

• The burnt slopes are left bare when heavy rain falls.

• Rain washes the topsoil down the hill, and slopes give way (link to natural hazards, Class 11).

• Repeated clearing → a cycle that keeps getting worse

• It leads to forest loss, silting of streams (mud filling up streams) and falling yields.
• Lower yields push farmers to clear even more forest.

Where it occurs

• In India: forested hills of the north-east, the central tribal belt, the Western Ghats and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Today it survives only in a few pockets. It has a different name in each region:

Name	Area
Jhumming (Jhum)	North-east: Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland
Pamlou	Manipur
Dipa	Bastar (Chhattisgarh); Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Bewar / Dahiya	Madhya Pradesh
Podu / Penda	Andhra Pradesh
Pama Dabi / Koman / Bringa	Odisha
Kumari	Western Ghats
Valre / Waltre	South-eastern Rajasthan
Khil	Himalayan belt
Kuruwa	Jharkhand

• In the world: mostly the humid tropics: the Amazon basin, tropical Africa and South-east Asia. An FAO estimate puts about 200 million people practising it over roughly 36 million sq km of land [2].

Name	Country / region
Milpa	Mexico and Central America
Conuco	Venezuela
Roca	Brazil
Masole	Central Africa (Congo basin)
Ladang	Indonesia (also Malaysia)
Ray	Vietnam

• Response on the ground: the NEPED (Nagaland Environmental Protection and Economic Development) project in Nagaland encourages farmers to plant useful trees on jhum fields.

Don't confuse with

• Nomadic herding: This is the other kind of primitive subsistence agriculture. Herders move with their animals to find pasture. Shifting cultivators move to find fresh land for crops.
• Intensive subsistence farming: This is also farming for the family, but it uses one small plot again and again with heavy labour, irrigation and biochemical inputs (Ganga plain, deltas, Kerala). Shifting cultivation uses no fertiliser or irrigation and moves to a new plot.
• Crop rotation: Here the crop changes on the same field each season. In shifting cultivation the field itself changes.
• Plantation farming: This is commercial, single-crop, capital-intensive farming that stays on one estate (tea in Assam, rubber in Kerala). Shifting cultivation is subsistence, mixed-crop farming with simple tools.

Prelims Hooks

• Pamlou = Manipur, not Mizoram (a common trap). Jhumming = Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland.
• Dipa = Bastar (Chhattisgarh) and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Podu / Penda = Andhra Pradesh. Bewar / Dahiya = Madhya Pradesh. Kuruwa = Jharkhand.
• Kumari = Western Ghats. Khil = Himalayan belt. Valre / Waltre = south-eastern Rajasthan.
• Names abroad: Milpa = Mexico and Central America; Conuco = Venezuela; Roca = Brazil; Masole = Central Africa; Ladang = Indonesia; Ray = Vietnam.
• The tools of this farming are the dao (broad knife), the hoe and the digging stick. It is also called swidden cultivation [3].
• NEPED is a Nagaland project that brings agroforestry (growing trees and crops together on the same land) into jhum fields.

Mains Points

• Why jhum has become harmful in the north-east (GS-I/GS-III):
• More people and less forest have cut the jhum cycle from 15-20 years to 3-5 years.
• With such a short fallow, the soil cannot recover. Bare slopes then face heavy monsoon rain.

• Result: soil erosion, landslides, silting of streams, forest loss and falling yields, which push farmers to clear still more land.

• Responses that work with the farmer, not against them (GS-III):

• Terracing: step-like flat fields cut into the hill slope slow down runoff (rainwater flowing over the surface) and hold the soil in place.
• Agroforestry and the NEPED model: alder and other nitrogen-fixing (soil-enriching) or timber trees on jhum fields help the fallow recover faster. Farmers earn from both crops and trees.

• Secure land rights. Banning jhum outright is not the answer, because it is linked to tribal culture and food security [3].

• Shifting cultivation as a world pattern (GS-I):

• It is a farming system of the humid tropics: the Amazon basin, tropical Africa, South-east Asia and north-east India.
• It supports about 200 million people over roughly 36 million sq km [2].
• So the problem of low yields and tropical forest loss is shared across the world, not only an Indian one.

Related concepts

• Primitive subsistence farming
• Regional names of shifting cultivation in India
• Commercial farming

Read more

• Types of farming: primitive subsistence, intensive subsistence, commercial and plantation