Shifting Cultivation

The process of globalisation has made an unprecedented change in indigenous people's lives worldwide. However, the degree of exploitation and marginalisation vary from State to states and tribal group to group. It examines that younger age group is more than 40%, the majority of Adivasis are illiterates. More than 70 per cent of samples are male and married, and they follow a nuclear family system. Fifty-three per cent of Adivasis are residing in small huts, their religion is Hindu, and they speak the Telugu language. Sixty per cent of respondents are cultivator with below three acres of land, and their annual income is below 14,000/ rupees. It shows that majority of Adivasis are in poverty. Twenty-three per cent of the respondent is suffering from Anaemia health problems, followed by 19 per cent of Blood Pressure, 15 per cent Diabetes, 13 per cent Tuberculosis, Nine per cent Gynecological problems, in the study area. The globalisation has adversely impacted socioeconomic aspects, including marriage, dressing patterns, and food habits of Adivasis in the study area of Telangana State, India.

Shifting cultivation has been attributed to causing large-scale deforestation and forest degradation in tropical forest-agriculture frontiers. This view has been embedded in many policy documents in the tropics, although, there are conflicting views within the literature as to the impacts of shifting cultivation. In part, this may be due to the complex nature of this land use making generalizations challenging. Here we provided a systematic map of research conducted on shifting cultivation in tropics. We first developed a literature search protocol using ISI Web of Science that identified 401 documents which met the search criteria. The spatial and temporal distribution of research related to shifting cultivation was mapped according to research focus. We then conducted a meta-analysis of studies (n=73) that focused on forest dynamics following shifting cultivation. A bias in research on anthropology/human ecology was evident, with most research reported from the tropical Asia Pacific region (215 studies). Other key research foci were – soil nutrients and chemistry (72 studies), plant ecology (62 studies), agricultural production/management (57 studies), agroforestry (35 studies), geography/land-use transitions (26 studies). Our meta-analysis revealed a great variability in findings on selected forest and environmental parameters from the studies examined. Studies on ecology were mainly concentrated on plant diversity and successional development, while conservation biology related studies were focused on birds. Limited impacts of shifting cultivation on some soil essential nutrients were also apparent. Apart from the intensity of past usage site spatial attributes seems critical for the successful development of fallow landscapes to secondary forests. Further research is needed to help ascertain the environmental consequences of this traditional land-use on tropical forests. Scientists and policy makers also need to be cautious when making generalizations about the impacts of shifting cultivation and to the both the social and environmental context in which shifting cultivation is being undertaken.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007. Since then, the importance of the role that indigenous peoples play in economic, social and environmental conservation through traditional sustainable agricultural practices has been gradually recognized. Consistent with the mandate to eradicate hunger, poverty and malnutrition – and based on the due respect for universal human rights – in August 2010 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations adopted a policy on indigenous and tribal peoples in order to ensure the relevance of its efforts to respect, include, and promote indigenous people’s related issues in its general work. This publication is an outcome of a regional consultation held in Bangkok, Thailand in November 2013. It documents seven case studies which were conducted in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nepal and Thailand to take stock of the changes in livelihood and food security among indigenous shifting cultivation communities in South and Southeast Asia against the backdrop of the rapid socio-economic transformations currently engulfing the region. The case studies identify external – macro-economic, political, legal, policy – and internal – demographic, social, cultural – factors that hinder and facilitate achieving and sustaining livelihood and food security. The case studies also document good practices in adaptive changes among shifting cultivation communities with respect to livelihood and food security, land tenure and natural resource management, and identify intervention measures supporting and promoting good practices in adaptive changes among shifting cultivators in the region.

Shifting cultivation or slash & burn is a traditional agricultural activity practiced commonly in rural mountainous region. It is a system of rotating cultivation on a plot of land for 2-3 years and leaves it fallow for another 10-15 years. Since there have been many controversies about the impact of jhum cultivation the study was done to analyse the current situation of the practice of shifting cultivation as perceived by the local people of Mokokchung village. It was carried on with the method of primary analysis by preparing questionnaire, interviews with the local people and observations and secondary analysis of reviewing research paper, articles and governmental websites. The result shows that 68% of population practice shifting cultivation where out of it 69% of the locals depend on other activities other than agriculture but a high percent of people still practice it with the traditional method which is dangerous to the land and environment. It is suggested to the people that awareness on environmental impact of shifting cultivation is needed and they should engage on other sector and not dependent only on agriculture itself. Government policies should be adopted strictly to decrease the misuse of land caused by jhum.

The objective of the study is to weigh the impact of agroforestry practices on smallholder’s livelihood in the upland area of Cox’s bazar region. Few development organisations have been implementing some small scale livelihood development project focusing agroforestry practices on sustaining the upland community. The study was conducted to assess the suitability of the implemented program. The upland smallholders of Bangladesh have been suffering extreme poverty since the colonial period. In the Cox’s bazar region they also bear the same fate. Some tribal community living here too depending on forest extremely. They were overlooked mostly in terms of national development. In this context, the upland small farmers were selected for the study who possessed less than 01 ha agricultural land. The study found that about 57% of land used in homestead Agroforestry and 42% people adopted it as main income sources. As the 85% respondents claimed to have a better production and 71.67% ascertain that enhanced their annual income after the adoption of Agroforestry. They claimed to have a better life due to increasing their production and income level as well. In the same time, 60% respondents said their purchasing capacity has been improved. So that, they can buy additional food, afford the medication fees and able to bear the children’s schooling fees than before. Their dwelling status has also been improved which is the significant impact of Agroforestry practices as they claimed. The study suggests that the achievement of the present endeavour will be more sustainable if they have the long-term access to interestfree financial service as from NGOs like SHED & AF. The main problem is that the smallholders did not keep any written records of farming activities. The future efforts should be directed at on-farm research with prioritising the farmers’ involvement to identify the research problems.

In Meghalaya, the recent unprecedented demographic growth has intensified the local agricultural system with serious implication for food security. As the carrying capacity of the upland region is much limited compared to the lowland, the most important repercussion of population growth in the plateau is on traditional agricultural practices and existing food systems. Here, we analyze the resultant changes in the agriculture in terms of production, productivity and per capita availability of staple food based on agricultural census and population census data. We found, in spite of the growth in the production of rice, there is considerable decline in the area under rice crop during the last four decades albeit with important regional and sub-regional variations. People living in the upland are forced to depend more on food imported from outside and are increasingly becoming food insecure.

Based on the case of Nyamikum village’s Abulës-Speakers (‘Abelam’) in Papua New Guinea, this paper weaves two parallel discussions: the first shifts our approach of gardens from being horizontal surfaces, covered in assemblages of plants, towards a vertical one, in which gardens are dynamic interfaces upon which recursive processes of generativity and depletion appear in temporal sequences of movement between a space above and another below, acting as container of capacities. The second discussion focusses on how humans engage with garden plants, enact technics (defined here as a specific configuration of practices/techniques, objects and relations) which facilitate the becoming of plants, in a way that actualises a ‘friendly’ or ‘moral’ order elicitation according to principles of enablement instead of extraction. Finally, the paper makes the hypothesis that the transposition of visual forms created by technics to other places, such as the ceremonial house, makes them as efficacious in manifesting and enabling vital processes of generativity. This leads to the conclusion that technics play indeed a central role in the unifying the moral and the cosmic order, because they always contain a part of material self-evidence which
does not rest on conventions or beliefs. As a result, it confirms that local notions of efficacious actions are the bases upon which wider vernacular conceptions (of sociality, of generativity or of morality) and logics can be built.

The Khasis of West Khasi Hills practice another interesting method, and use cow's blood to repel birds from paddy fields. A small bird species, locally known as phreit, comes in flocks and damages the paddy, breaking the tillers. Usually it destroys the crop during the ...

Shifting cultivation is a widespread practice in tropical forested areas that policy makers often regard as the major cause of forest degradation. Secondary fallow forests regrowing after shifting cultivation are generally not viewed as suitable for biodiversity conservation and carbon retention. Drawing upon our research in the Philippines and other relevant case studies, we compared the biodiversity and carbon sequestration in recovering secondary forests after shifting cultivation to other land uses that commonly follow shifting cultivation. Regenerating secondary forests had higher biodiversity than fast-growing timber plantations and other restoration options available in the area. Some old plantations, however, provided carbon benefits comparable the old-growth forest, although their biodiversity was less than that of the regenerating forests. Our study demonstrates that secondary forests regrowing after shifting cultivation have a high potential for biodiversity and carbon sequestration, representing an effective strategy for forest management and restoration in countries where they are common and where the forest is an integral part of rural people’s livelihoods. We discuss the issues and potential mechanisms through which such dynamic land use can be incorporated into development projects that are currently financing the sustainable management, conservation, and restoration of tropical forests.