Slash-and-burn facts for kids
Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method where people cut down and burn plants in a forest or woodland. This creates a clear area called a swidden or field.
First, farmers cut down trees and other plants. These cut plants, known as "slash," are left to dry. This usually happens just before the rainiest time of the year. Then, the dried plants are burned. The ash left behind is full of nutrients, which makes the soil fertile. Burning also temporarily gets rid of weeds and pests.
After about three to five years, the soil in the field loses its nutrients. Weeds and pests also start to come back. Because of this, farmers leave the field and move to a new area. The time it takes for a swidden to recover depends on the place. It can be as short as five years or more than twenty years. After it recovers, the land can be used again, starting the cycle over. In Bangladesh and India, this practice is called jhum or jhoom.
Slash-and-burn is a type of shifting cultivation. This is an agricultural system where farmers regularly move from one farming area to another. It's estimated that 200 to 500 million people worldwide use slash-and-burn farming. This method causes temporary deforestation, meaning trees are removed from an area. The ashes from the burned trees help farmers by adding nutrients to the soil. When there aren't many people in an area, this method can be very sustainable. However, it doesn't work well for very large populations.
A similar term is assarting, which means clearing forests, usually for farming. But assarting does not include burning the plants.
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History of Slash-and-Burn Farming
Historically, people have used slash-and-burn farming all over the world. Even before farming was invented, hunter-gatherers used fire. They still do today. They made clearings with fire for many reasons. For example, fires helped new plants grow for game animals to eat. They also helped certain edible plants grow better.
During the Neolithic Revolution, groups of hunter-gatherers learned to grow different plants and raise animals. This allowed them to settle down and farm. Farming provided more food from a smaller area than hunting and gathering. Some groups could easily plant crops in open fields near rivers. But others lived in areas covered by forests. So, since ancient times, slash-and-burn agriculture has been widely used to clear land for crops and livestock.
In European prehistory, large families often moved through woodlands. They would burn and farm their swidden plots, plant crops, and then move to the next plot.
How Slash-and-Burn Works
Slash-and-burn fields are usually used and owned by a family until the soil is no longer fertile. At this point, the family gives up their rights to the land. They clear a new field, and trees and shrubs are allowed to grow back on the old one. After a few decades, another family might use the land and claim rights to it. In this system, farmland is not usually bought or sold. Instead, land rights are based on tradition.
In slash-and-burn farming, forests are typically cut down a few months before the dry season. The cut plants are left to dry. Then, they are burned in the following dry season. The ash that results fertilizes the soil. The burned field is then planted at the start of the next rainy season. Farmers plant crops like rice, maize (corn), cassava, or other main foods. This work was once done using simple tools like machetes, axes, hoes, and shovels.
Benefits and Challenges
This farming system provides food and income for millions of people. It has been good for the environment for thousands of years. In many tropical areas, like the Amazon, the soil is very poor in nutrients. Slash-and-burn is one of the only types of farming that can be done in these places.
Farmers who use slash-and-burn usually plant many different kinds of crops. They don't just plant one type. This helps create different habitats, which supports more biodiversity. Traditional slash-and-burn farming does not harm the overall ecosystem, except for a small temporary area.
However, this method is not good for growing cash crops, which are crops grown to be sold. Slash-and-burn needs a lot of land or a small number of people. If slash-and-burn is done too often in the same area, because too many people are living there, the forest will eventually be destroyed.
Slash-and-Burn Around the World
Asia
Tribal groups in the northeastern Indian states of Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland, and in the Bangladeshi districts of Rangamati, Khagrachari, Bandarban, and Sylhet, call slash-and-burn agriculture jhum or jhoom cultivation. This system involves clearing land, either by fire or by cutting down all trees, for important crops like upland rice, vegetables, or fruits. After a few cycles, the land's fertility goes down, and a new area is chosen.
Jhum cultivation is most often done on the slopes of thickly-forested hills. Farmers cut the tops of trees to let sunlight reach the ground. They burn the trees and grasses to make the soil fresh. While this is thought to help fertilize the land, it can also make it easy for the soil to erode. Holes are made for seeds of crops like sticky rice, maize, eggplant, and cucumber. After looking at the effects of jhum, the government of Mizoram has started a plan to stop this method in the state.
Americas
Some ancient American civilizations, like the Maya, have used slash-and-burn farming for a very long time. Native Americans in the United States also used fire for farming and hunting. In the Amazon, many groups, such as the Yanomami, also use the slash-and-burn method because the Amazon's soil quality is poor.
Northern Europe
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Slash-and-burn techniques were used in northeastern Sweden for farming. In Sweden, this practice is known as svedjebruk.
The Telkkämäki Nature Reserve in Kaavi, Finland, is an open-air museum. Here, slash-and-burn agriculture is demonstrated. Visitors can see how people farmed when slash-and-burn was common in the Northern Savonia region of eastern Finland, starting in the 15th century. Parts of the reserve are burned each year.
What is Svedjebruk?
Svedjebruk is a Swedish and Norwegian term for slash-and-burn agriculture. It comes from an old Norse word that means "to burn." This practice started in Russia in the Novgorod region. It was very common in Finland and Eastern Sweden during the Middle Ages. It spread to western Sweden in the 16th century. Finnish settlers were encouraged to move there by King Gustav Vasa to help clear the thick forests.
Later, when the Finns were treated badly by the local Swedes, svedjebruk farming spread to eastern Norway. This happened more specifically in the eastern part of Solør, near the Swedish border, in an area known as Finnskogen ("the Finnish woods"). The practice also spread to New Sweden in North America. It became an important part of pioneering in America, also helped by how Native Americans used fire in farming and hunting.
How Svedjebruk Was Done
Svedjebruk involved cutting a ring of bark completely around the trunk of coniferous trees like pine or spruce, or cutting them down. This allowed them to dry. Then, the dried forest was set on fire. Crops were grown on the fertile, ash-covered soil. The ash was very fertile, but only for a short time.
The cleared area was first planted with rye as soon as the ash had settled and cooled enough. When the rain came, it packed the ash around the rye. The rye grew very well, with many stalks, each having multiple grains. Only two tools were needed: an axe and a sickle. The axe cut the trees to start the cycle. When the rye was ready, it was harvested with a sickle. A sickle could reach among the rocks and stumps where a scythe would not work.
In the second and third year, the field would be planted with turnips or cabbages. After that, animals might graze there for several years before the land was allowed to grow back into woodland.
Svedjebruk Culture
Svedjebruk required cutting down new forest and burning a new area every year. It was necessary to let the old fields regrow into forest for 10–30 years before using them again. Because of this, homes were often many kilometers from the fields. Also, since the process needed a lot of human effort, extended families often worked together and lived in close communities.
The svedjebruk farming method needed a large area of land. When there was plenty of forest, the Finns were very successful. As the population grew and rules were put on which forests could be burned, it became harder. By 1710, during a conflict with Sweden, Norwegian authorities thought about forcing the Finns to leave the border area because they suspected their loyalty. However, they did not do so because they thought the Finns were too poor to survive if they were evicted.
Research and Modern Approaches
Many organizations that work on development or the environment do not support this type of farming. They suggest other options. One is to switch to more intensive, permanent farming methods. Another is to help farmers move from farming to working in different, higher-paying jobs. Other groups help farmers get better results by teaching them new techniques.
One idea to increase crop yields is to not let the cut plants burn completely. Instead, the leftover charcoal is plowed into the soil. This is called 'slash-and-char'.
A project from the early 2000s suggested that slash-and-burn farming could be reduced if farmers grew black pepper crops between Inga trees. They called this 'Inga alley cropping'.
Another idea to improve yields in a traditional farming method called 'slash-and-cover' (used for growing common beans in Central America) has been proposed. This involves planting leguminous shrubs as a fallow crop after the soil is used up and farmers are ready to clear a new patch of forest.
Images for kids
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Arunachal Pradesh, India
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See also
