Write a short note on ‘shifting cultivation’.

Shifting cultivation is a form of agriculture in which a plot of land is cleared by slash and burn. Ashes are then mixed with the soil and crops are grown. After the land has lost its fertility, it is abandoned. Shifting cultivation is also known as slash and burn agriculture.

The farmers then move to a new place. In the British time also they wanted to settle shifting cultivators or jhum for the economic purposes and administrative purpose.

To settled cultivators was not easy in areas where water was less or scanty and the soil is dry. Those who took to plough cultivation often suffered since their fields did not produce good yields.