Question

characteristics of shifting cultivation

Answer 1

it may give us renewable land to cultivate our crops

Answer 2

Shifting cultivation is a system in agriculture, which a person uses a piece of land, only to abandon or alter the initial use a short time later. This system often involves clearing of a piece of land followed by several years of wood harvesting or farming until the soil loses fertility. Once the land becomes inadequate for crop production, it is left to be reclaimed by natural vegetation, or sometimes converted to a different long term cyclical farming practice. This system of agriculture is often practiced at the level of an individual or family, but sometimes may involve an entire village. An estimated population exceeding 250 million people derives subsistence from the practice of shifting cultivation, and ecological consequences are often deleterious, but are not as severe provided new forests are not invaded. Of these cultivators, many use a practice of slash-and-burn as one element of their farming cycle. Others employ land clearing without any burning, and some cultivators are purely migratory and do not use any cyclical method on a given plot. Sometimes no slashing at all is needed. An outcome is not uncommon when the soils are near exhaustion.