How to Slash and Burn Agriculture
- Prepare the field by cutting down vegetation; plants that provide food or timber may be left standing.
- The downed vegetation is allowed to dry until just before the rainiest part of the year to ensure an effective burn.
- The plot of land is burned to remove vegetation, drive away pests, and provide a...
What is the purpose of the slash and burn?
The "slash" is permitted to dry and then burned in the following dry season. The resulting ash fertilizes the soil and the burned field is then planted at the beginning of the next rainy season with crops such as rice, maize, cassava, or other staples. This work was once done using simple tools such as machetes, axes, hoes and shovels .
What is the slash and burn method in farming?
So, if you have a patch lying around with wild trees and bushes, you must apply the slash and burn method. This is to use the land for planting any crops on the patch and that will help you out in the right manner. There are certain cons to the slash and burn method as well.
What is slash and Burn plantation?
Slash and burn is one such method. It is used to prepare the land for the better growth of plants and trees. This is so you can get the most nutrients out of the soil. Additionally, it is to ensure that soil is ready to be used for another plantation. If you are not sure about the method, here are a few things that you need to know about it.
What are the negative effects of slash and burn?
Where It’s Practiced Today, and the Negative Effects. It also results in destruction of diverse flora and fauna nestled in these forests, and destabilizes the watersheds. Slash and burn also results in landslides, water pollution, and soil erosion due to lack of vegetation and roots, which are needed to anchor the soil.
What is the process of slash and burn farming?
Slash and burn farming or slash and burn agriculture is the process of shifting agriculture by clearing a piece of land for cultivation. Here, the natural vegetation of the land is cut down and eventually burned in order to make space for agricultural crops.
Is slash and burn effective?
So, the slash and burn process successfully clears land for agriculture and introduces fertilizing nutrients into the soil, leaving it in excellent condition to grow crops.
How does slash and burn impact the environment?
Although traditional practices generally contributed few greenhouse gases because of their scale, modern slash-and-burn techniques are a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions, especially when used to initiate permanent deforestation.
How does slash and burn cause deforestation?
One of the issues with slash and burn is that fires intentionally set can unintentionally spread throughout the forest. When fire spreads to unintended areas, the protective forest canopy is destroyed. The resulting sun exposure to the forest floor intensifies the existing fire.
What is the advantage of slash and burn farming?
When done properly, slash and burn agriculture provides communities with a source of food and income. Slash and burn allows people to farm in places where it usually is not possible because of dense vegetation, soil infertility, low soil nutrient content, uncontrollable pests, or other reasons.
Why do farmers burn their land?
Agricultural burning helps farmers remove crop residues left in the field after harvesting grains, such as hay and rice. Farmers also use agricultural burning for removal of orchard and vineyard prunings and trees. Burning also helps remove weeds, prevent disease and control pests.
Why is slash and burn not sustainable?
It is not sustainable After burning the land severally, it takes between 10 to 25 years and sometimes even 40 years to regain its fertility. The practice of leaving the land fallow for that long is more difficult with the growing population and increasing demand for food.
Does slash and burn cause global warming?
Forests are still being cut down and burned to clear land for farming, ranching, and road building. Slash-and-burn contributes to climate change by releasing all the carbon that the forest trees have absorbed over their lifetimes.
Is slash-and-burn agriculture good or bad?
The methods used in slash and burn farming clear land quickly and return nutrients to the soil. However, deforestation and soil erosion are two negative consequences of slash and burn farming which ultimately lead to the destruction of ecosystems and biodiversity.
What was the biggest problem with slash and burn agriculture?
Recent decades have seen a dramatic increase in tropical deforestation caused by slash-and-burn clearing for the establishment of more permanent agriculture, plantations and pastures, which often result in degraded grasslands or degraded fallows.
How does slash and burn affect the carbon cycle?
When people clear the forests, usually with fire, carbon stored in the wood returns to the atmosphere, enhancing the greenhouse effect and global warming. Once the forest is cleared for crop or grazing land, the soils can become a large source of carbon emissions, depending on how farmers and ranchers manage the land.
Why do African farmers practice slash and burn farming?
Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil and to clear the ground of unwanted plants especially in places where open land for farming is not readily available because of dense vegetation are the places where slash and burn agriculture is practiced most often.
Does slash-and-burn cause wildfires?
Forests are burning all over the world. However, in nature only 10 to 15 percent of wildfires occur on their own. The remaining 85 to 90 percent are caused by humans, and slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the major reasons.
Who practiced slash-and-burn agriculture?
This practice originated in Russia in the region of Novgorod and was widespread in Finland and Eastern Sweden during the Medieval period. It spread to western Sweden in the 16th Century when Finnish settlers were encouraged to migrate there by King Gustav Vasa to help clear the dense forests.
How do you use the word slash-and-burn in a sentence?
The company rejected a slash-and-burn type restructuring program.
What is the other term for slash-and-burn cultivation?
Shifting cultivation is also known as slash and burn agriculture.
How does slash and burn work?
The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegetation, or "slash", is then left to dry, usually right before the rainiest part of the year. Then, the biomass is burned, resulting in a nutrient-rich layer of ash which makes the soil fertile, as well as temporarily eliminating weed and pest species. After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases due to depletion of nutrients along with weed and pest invasion, causing the farmers to abandon the field and move over to a new area. The time it takes for a swidden to recover depends on the location and can be as little as five years to more than twenty years, after which the plot can be slashed and burned again, repeating the cycle. In Bangladesh and India, the practice is known as jhum or jhoom.
What is slash and burn?
Because the leached soil in many tropical regions, such as the Amazon, are nutritionally extremely poor, slash-and-burn is one of the only types of agriculture which can be practised in these areas. Slash-and-burn farmers typically plant a variety of crops, instead of a monoculture, and contribute to a higher biodiversity due to creating mosaic habitats. The general ecosystem is not harmed in traditional slash-and-burn, aside from a small temporary patch. Slash and burn agriculture may be thought of as a form of agroforestry.
What was the use of slash and burn agriculture?
Thus, since Neolithic times, slash-and-burn agriculture has been widely used to clear land to make it suitable for crops and livestock.
What is slash and burn farming?
v. t. e. Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegetation, or "slash", is then left to dry, usually right before the rainiest part of the year.
How many people use slash and burn?
A rough estimate is that 200 million to 500 million people worldwide use slash-and-burn. Slash-and-burn causes temporary deforestation.
Where is Slash and Burn located?
Slash-and-burn in Småland, Sweden (1904) Telkkämäki Nature Reserve in Kaavi, Finland, is an open-air museum where slash-and-burn agriculture is demonstrated. Farm visitors can see how people farmed when slash-and-burn was the norm in the Northern Savonian region of eastern Finland beginning in the 15th century.
Why was fire used in the hunter?
Clearings created by the fire were made for many reasons, such as to provide new growth for game animals and to promote certain kinds of edible plants.
Why do you use slash and burn?
Slash and burn is one such method. It is used to prepare the land for the better growth of plants and trees. This is so you can get the most nutrients out of the soil. Additionally, it is to ensure that soil is ready to be used for another plantation. If you are not sure about the method, here are a few things that you need to know about it.
Can a fire be controlled?
The fire should be burnt in a controlled environment but it can get hard at times to control the fire. You will have to make sure that you have countermeasures ready, as these will help you see it through.
Does ash fertilize soil?
Not only the ash adds to the soil as fertilizer, but there is also a lot more to the slash and burn method that will be helping you. The method can easily clear a large area without you doing much of the hard work. You just have to spread a fire through the wild bushes after you are done with the bigger trees.
Does ash help plants grow?
There are lots of pros to the method. For starters, it will add a layer of ash on the top of your soil. The layer is going to act as the fertilizer for your new plants. This will be great for their growth. All that ash adds to the natural nutrients on your soil. Once it is watered down properly, it will be acting as the best compost that you can get out there.
How does slash and burn work?
Once an area is established, trees, shrubs and large vegetation are all cut and left to dry out. After the plants have had ample time to dry, which usually takes a few days, intentional fires are set. The burning of the vegetation provides nutrients to the soil. When the trees and shrubs are burned, they break down nutrients in the dead plants, and make them more readily available to the soil. This process works much in the same way as adding fertilizer to soil before planting, except that the fertilizer in this case is natural, and coming directly from the burned plants that were already growing in that area.
How does slash and burn affect the environment?
One of the biggest perceived issues with slash and burn and shifting cultivation farming techniques is the negative impact on the environment. It is true that deforestation and uncontrolled slashing have had massive nad devastating impacts on ecosystems and habitats as well as greatly affected the environment at large. The removal of large expanses of trees and vegetation not only eliminates some of the world’s greatest carbon absorbers, but it has also led to erosion, soil nutrient depletion and left many areas completely barren wastelands. This drastic type of slashing is what is so often associated with slash and burn techniques, and has been argued against and ridiculed on a wide scale. However properly monitored and controlled shifting cultivation actually does not affect the environment in this way. One reason is, as mentioned above, the crops are rotated. This means that nutrients do not get depleted as rapidly or as thoroughly. When the same crop is planted in a given area season after season, the particular nutrients needed to nourish that plant are used at an increased rate. By rotating out plant crops, the soil has a chance to replenish - at least partially - between uses. Of course, for the nutrients to fully replenish, the soil does need down time, where no cultivation or agriculture occurs, which is why the most sustainable shifting agriculture involves rest periods where the ground is allowed to fallow and grow plants naturally.
What is slash and burn farming?
Slash and burn agriculture is a highly controversial and misunderstood practice. The practice has sometimes been associated with mass cutting, clearing and deforestation, but in fact “slash and burn” agriculture has a long standing history. The term slash and burn does sound harsh and destructive, but this farming technique, also known as shifting cultivation, can be extremely fruitful and sustainable if done correctly.The harsh cutting that is so often associated with slash and burn, is actually not at all the same practice. In the negative cases, large scale forests - often rainforests - are cut and cleared to make room for huge agricultural plots. These new farm lands are then usually planted with a single crop that is cultivated on that land until the soil is depleted of all viable nutrients. The process of shifting cultivation, however, is based on maintaining a sustainable, balanced form of farming that rotates and “shifts” within a given area, in order to allow the natural habitat to recuperate. Much like with seasons, there are various stages to this form of farming, and the process is not done in one fell swoop, cutting down entire forests and replanting them immediately.
What happens when you burn a tree?
When the trees and shrubs are burned, they break down nutrients in the dead plants, and make them more readily available to the soil.
Where is slash and burn cultivation?
Slash and burn cultivation (locally called jhum cultivation in India) in progress at Wokha, Nagaland, India. Similarly, the fire works as a natural pesticide, and thus no harmful chemicals are needed prior to planting. Once an area has been burned, it is then planted with the desired crop. Part of the shifting aspect of shifting cultivation, which ...
Why is it important that only small areas are cleared at a time?
This is also the reason it is so important that only small areas are cleared at a time, because regrowth takes many years.
Is slash and burn agriculture sustainable?
While deforestation can be harmful to the environment, slash and burn agriculture is actually very sustainable. Shifting cultivation allows natural habitats to remain, and maintains biodiversity while still yielding crops.
Where is slash and burn used?
Slash-and-burn agriculture is often used by tropical-forest root-crop farmers in various parts of the world and by dry-rice cultivators of the forested hill country of Southeast Asia. The ash provides some fertilization, and the plot is relatively free of weeds. After several years of cultivation, fertility declines and weeds increase.
Does slash and burn produce carbon dioxide?
Although traditional practices generally contributed few greenhouse gases because of their scale, modern slash-and-burn techniques are a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions, especially when used to initiate permanent deforestation. In Southeast Asia, slash-and- burn agriculture for oil palm cultivation has been a major source ...
Overview
Regionally
Tribal groups in the northeastern Indian states of Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and the Bangladeshi districts of Rangamati, Khagrachari, Bandarban and Sylhet refer to slash-and-burn agriculture as jhum or jhoom cultivation. The system involves clearing land, by fire or clear-felling, for economically-important crops such as upland rice, vegetables or fruits. After a f…
History
Historically, slash-and-burn cultivation has been practiced throughout much of the world. Fire was already used by hunter-gatherers before the invention of agriculture, and still is in present times. Clearings created by the fire were made for many reasons, such as to provide new growth for game animals and to promote certain kinds of edible plants.
During the Neolithic Revolution, groups of hunter-gatherers domesticated various plants and anim…
Technique
Slash-and-burn fields are typically used and owned by a family until the soil is exhausted. At this point the ownership rights are abandoned, the family clears a new field, and trees and shrubs are permitted to grow on the former field. After a few decades, another family or clan may then use the land and claim usufructuary rights. In such a system there is typically no market in farmland, s…
Benefits and drawbacks
This system of agriculture provides millions of people with food and income. It has been ecologically sustainable for thousands of years. Because the leached soil in many tropical regions, such as the Amazon, are nutritionally extremely poor, slash-and-burn is one of the only types of agriculture which can be practiced in these areas. Slash-and-burn farmers typically plant a variety of crops, instead of a monoculture, and contribute to a higher biodiversity due to creatin…
Research
This type of agriculture is discouraged by many developmental or environmentalist organisations, with the main alternatives being promoted are switching to more intensive, permanent farming methods, or promoting a shift from farming to working in different, higher-paying industries altogether. Other organisations promote helping farmers achieve higher productivity by introducing new techniques.
Gallery
• Santa Cruz, Bolivia
• Chiang Mai, Thailand
• Arunachal Pradesh, India
See also
• 2006 Southeast Asian haze
• 2013 Southeast Asian haze
• 2015 Southeast Asian haze
• 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires