shifting cultivation

An agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned to regenerate soil fertility by the regeneration of natural vegetation. The system involves 1) the removal of the natural vegetation (usually forest or shrub land) in most cases (though not exclusively) by cutting and subsequent burning, mulching, or their combinations (such as in slash-and-burn, slash-and-mulch); 2) an alternation between a short duration of cultivation and a comparatively long duration of bush or forest fallow (such as in swidden agroforestry); and 3) the regular, in most cases cyclical, shifting of field (Erni, 2015). Shifting cultivation systems are found around the world, particularly in tropical areas, in a wide range of soils and vegetation types, under a diversity of land and resource management, using different crops and cultivation methods, and are practiced by innumerous Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.

Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned and allowed to revert to their natural vegetation while the cultivator moves on to another plot.

An agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned to regenerate soil fertility by the regeneration of natural vegetation. The system involves 1) the removal of the natural vegetation (usually forest or shrub land) in most cases (though not exclusively) by cutting and subsequent burning, mulching, or their combinations (such as in slash-and-burn, slash-and- mulch); 2) an alternation between a short duration of cultivation and a comparatively long duration of bush or forest fallow (such as in swidden agroforestry); and 3) the regular, in most cases cyclical, shifting of field (Erni, 2015). Shifting cultivation systems are found around the world, particularly in tropical areas, in a wide range of soils and vegetation types, under a diversity of land and resource management, using different crops and cultivation methods, and are practiced by innumerous Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.