Question

Mention the characteristics of shifting cultivation.

Hint:

Characteristics of shifting cultivation

Answer 1

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
Shifting cultivation is a traditional farming method practised in tropical forest regions, where farmers clear a patch of forest, farm it for a short time, and then move on to a new patch. It is known locally in India as 'jhum'.

Step 2: Clearing and burning.
Farmers cut and burn a small patch of forest, and the ash left behind acts as a natural fertiliser for the newly cleared soil, a method often called 'slash and burn'.

Step 3: Short cropping period.
The cleared land is cropped for only two or three years, because the soil's natural fertility, boosted only by the ash, runs out quickly under continuous farming.

Step 4: Abandonment and fallow.
Once yields fall, the plot is abandoned and left fallow for many years to let the forest regrow and the soil recover, while the farmer clears a fresh patch elsewhere.

Step 5: Other features.
It uses simple tools rather than machinery, involves low labour and capital input, and is mostly for subsistence, growing food for the farmer's own family rather than for sale.

Final Answer:
Shifting cultivation is marked by slash and burn clearing, short cropping periods, long fallow recovery, simple tools and subsistence output.\[ \boxed{\text{Slash-burn, short cropping, long fallow, subsistence}} \]