![]() ![]() In order to achieve this, areas of forest have to be cleared to establish new fields. Sun exposure: First, many staple annual crops which supply food for hundreds of thousands of people in the world require full sun exposure.Here are several ways in which slash-and-burn agriculture can be beneficial. When practiced with patience and respect for the land, this means of cultivation can support healthy soil and biodiversity, while also maintaining the traditional practices of Indigenous groups who use this for subsistence and permit longer fallow periods. ![]() Slash-and-burn has a poor reputation because of the influence of industrial agriculture, which seeks to exploit the land without consideration for its health or local populations and has the potential to result in deforestation. This can indeed be true when the technique is practiced wrong. ![]() Advantages of Slash-and-Burn Many people of the world still rely on slash-and-burn agriculture so it's important not to dismiss this practice altogether.Īt first glance, slash-and-burn agriculture appears to be a destructive and invasive practice. Next to animal agriculture, intensive farming which uses slash-and-burn techniques without proper fallow periods is a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions. Most estimates say an area can only maintain enough nutrients to grow crops for two to three cycles and requires a minimum of ten years to recover. When discussing slash-and-burn, it should always be specified which practices and which timeframes are meant.ĭifferent variables such as humidity and weather patterns affect the amount of time a field can hold nutrients before it must be abandoned, but the research on this is not conclusive. ![]() While the term slash-and-burn agriculture is often loosely used to refer to the second process, this is not how slash-and-burn has existed in traditional societies. more intensive type of agriculture that uses slash-and-burn techniques, which results in a forest’s inability to establish itself with fallow periods that are too short.traditional slash-and-burn agriculture, which requires a regrowth period to maintain these cycles of cultivation.There should be a distinction between the two processes: And the cultivation of slash-and-burn areas only last a few years before weeds, pests, and disease reappear, and nutrients have been washed away or used by crops. It releases large swaths of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When slash-and-burn is used as an industrial form of agriculture, it can exacerbate deforestation, the destruction of biodiversity, soil, and even communities. Read more Negative Effects of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Slash-and-burn farming is known for being destructive and this can be true when the objective is to exploit the forest. We’ll explain in more detail how human-environment… Human-environment interaction refers to how humans relate to the rest of their ecosystem. This cycle is repeated as farmers move on to new areas to slash-and-burn, as previous areas recover. Then, a fallow period follows which allows plant life to regrow and soil nutrients to be restored. The freshly nutrient-rich soil is usable for two to three years until the soil is exhausted. This growing of crops is said to return carbon and other nutrients to the soil from the plants. Traditionally, slash-and-burn involves the clearing of forested areas (by slashing), and the burning of the remaining vegetation to gain a clear and neat biomass ready for the propagation of different crops. This term is many times preferred to ‘slash-and-burn’ because of the negative connotation the latter provokes. The term swidden refers to the practice of burning biomass with the expectation of cultivating it, or the area of land created by it. It was adopted by hunter-gatherer societies as it allowed them to transition with seasonal migrations between hunting grounds and agricultural settlements. This ancient agricultural technique dates back at least 7,000 years and is one of the oldest practices of cultivation. This type of agriculture requires a period in between burns that is long enough for the area to grow back dense and woody vegetation. Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting, slashing, and burning of plant life in a forest or woodland area to create a field called a swidden. Read more Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Explained Slash-and-burn agriculture is an old practice that relies on cycles of renewal and destruction. The following recent movies and documentaries about sustainability demonstrate why being an environmentalist is crucial to the health of our… ![]()
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