The historical background of shifting cultivation is old as the history of agriculture itself. The archaeological evidences and the radio-carbon dated traced back the origin of shifting cultivation to about 8000 BC during the Neolithic period and it witnessed the remarkable and revolutionary changes in the man’s mode of production of food from hunting and gathering to food producers. The tools used during the prehistoric age were fire-stone, axes and hoes, while in the present-day jhumming, the digging sticks, iron tools, iron digging sticks, dao, hoe and knives were replaced stone tools.
The “Shifting Cultivation”, its name varies in different parts of the world and generally known as ‘slash and burn’ and ‘bush fallow’ agriculture. In Indonesia, it is known as ‘Ladang’, Caingin in Philippines, Milpa in Central America and Mexico, Ray in Vietnam, Conuco in Venezuela, Roca in Brazil, Masole in the Congo and Central Africa. It is known as Jhum or Jum in the hilly states of Northeast India, as Podu, Dabi, Koman or Bringa in Orissa, as Kumari in Western Ghats, as Watra in southeast Rajasthan, as Penda, Bewar or Dahia and Deppa or Kumari in the Bastar District of Madhya Pradesh.
The shifting cultivation is described as a dominant economy of the jhummias characterized by rotation of fields rather than rotation of crops, absence of draught animals and manuring, use of human labour, employment of dibbled stick or hoe, and short period of occupancy alternating with low fallow periods. After two or three years the fields are abandoned, the cultivators shift to another clearing, leaving the old one to natural recuperation. This explains the term ‘shifting cultivation’.
It is generally defined as, the primitive form of soil utilization on which the farmers grow food only for family consumption. The shifting population is self-reliant with a high degree of independence and static economy with little chance of rapid improvement.
Generally, the operations of the shifting cultivation or jhumming are marked by the following steps:
i. Selection of forested hilly land.
ii. Clearing of forest tract by cutting down the jungles.
iii. Burning the dried forest wood into ashes.
iv. Worship and sacrifice.
v. Dibbling and sowing seeds.
vi. Weeding and protection of crops.
vii. Harvesting thrashing.
viii. Merry making and feasts.
ix. Fallowing.
Organization
The social organization of the people is built around the concepts of community ownership, community participation and communal responsibility. The basic axiom of life is “from each according to his capacity and to each according to fis needs”. Thus, in the society of shifting cultivators, the old, infirm, women, widows and children have an equal share, and each member of the society plays a role according to his physical and mental abilities.
Impacts
Almost 90% of the population depend their livelihood on agriculture; and the shifting cultivation plays a major role as their livelihood activities in hilly areas with a certain exception in plain areas where few pockets of terrace cultivation is practice.
The clearance of jungles is the prerequisite of shifting cultivation. The felling of trees and clearing of bushes, however, accelerate soil erosion and accentuate variability of rainfall which may lead either to draughts or floods. The overall impact is the decline in soil fertility. The ecosystems lose their silence characteristics. The dependant community on jhumming faces the shortage of food, fuel wood and fodder. Consequently, the nutritional standard goes down. These processes culminate into the social poverty and ecological imbalances.
As the cycle of shifting cultivation becomes shorter which is 4 to 5 years, the biomass that depend the humus of soil declines and the biodiversity is considerably reduced. The subsistence agriculture disappears and relatively strong cultivators start acquiring community land.
The transformation of natural vegetations occurred where bamboo and natural forests’ timbers transformed into deciduous scrubs and grasses. Thus, it gradually reducing the forest wealth and damaging the ecology beyond redemption.