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slash and burn
(redirected from swidden)

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slash and burn

Simple agricultural method whereby natural vegetation is cut and burned, and the clearing then farmed for a few years until the soil loses its fertility, whereupon farmers move on and leave the area to regrow. Although this is possible with a small, widely dispersed population, as in the Amazon rainforest for example, it becomes unsustainable with more people and is now a cause of deforestation.



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They practice swidden agriculture to grow a variety of crops suited to the different environments found on their mountainside: mangos, chiles, and sugar cane in the warm lowlands and corn, beans, coffee, and potatoes in the highlands.
Tiny milpa plots--the ancient American swidden of maize, beans, and squash--are planted on impossible slopes.
3) Bayliss Smith reported annual taro yields of 12-25 gross tonnes per hectare for four sites of wetland cultivation between 1500m and 1640m and of 8-10 tonnes per hectare for taro grown under swidden in three societies of the Highlands fringe between 1200m and 1900m.
 
 
 
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