Shifting cultivation in funaab

This is all i used my friday for in the farm.
We learnt that,
Tropical soils generally are low in fertility and are usually not suitable for continuous cultivation unless sustained by inorganic fertilizer and organic manure.

Shifting cultivation was the cheapest way of maintaining soil fertility.

This is a system in which the farmer clears a piece of land and cultivate it for some few years and then moves on to cultivate another, leaving the first one to fallow for 5-10 years.

The piece of land left to fallow is then re-opened for cultivation after the period of fallowing.

The bush fallow period is necessary because it restores the organic matter and nutrient level of the soil.

Shifting cultivation is effective and is the cheapest method available to peasant farmers for maintaining soil productivity because most farmers who practice it do not use or cannot afford the cost of chemical fertilizers.

Two types of shifting cultivation are recognised under the subsistence farming system.

Temporary shifting cultivation where people build temporary homesteads and practice shifting cultivation in there immediate vicinity until crop yield fail significantly.
The whole community then migrate elsewhere to build new village and open a new land.

This is a primitive form of shifting cultivation and it exists only in a few places at present.
In the case of Permanent Shifting Cultivation, the farmers live in a permanent village or town with their land covering a large area, the home is stationary, while the farm moves. This is a common practice today in most parts of the tropics, including tropical Africa.

The prolonged use of land naturally results in a more rapid rotation of cultivated farms and so fallow period tends to become gradually shorter.

As productivity of the immediate vicinity declines, the .distance from a dwelling to the farm may continue to increase.