Innovation in shifting cultivation in Asia: Indigenous fallow management

In Asia and other tropical regions shifting cultivation was the first form of agroforestry to be widely practised. Shifting cultivators normally use slash-and-burn methods to clear primary or secondary forest to prepare the land for food crops. They alternate fallow periods of either natural fallow vegetation or managed fallow with food crop cultivation in order to suppress weeds and restore soil fertility. Shifting cultivation continues to be the economic mainstay of upland communities in many parts of the Asian-Pacific region. In the past, a relatively low population density and abundant forest cover provided optimal conditions for sustainable shifting cultivation practices in which long fallow periods of between 10 and 50 years were not uncommon.