Slash-and-burn

Agriculture
History Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient Rome Austronesia Agricultural science Agricultural History Review Arab Agricultural Revolution Argentina Canada China Chile Columbian exchange Green Revolution Indian subcontinent Mesoamerica Middle Ages Neolithic Revolution Organic farming Palestine Peru United Kingdom British Agricultural Revolution Cheshire Scotland United States African-American California
On land Agrivoltaic Animal husbandry cattle pigs poultry sheep Dairy Dryland Extensive Fertilizer Free-range Grazing Convertible husbandry Rotational grazing Hobby Intensive animals pigs crops Natural Monoculture Orchard Organic Paddy field Ranching Sharecropping Colonia Slash-and-burn Smallholding Terrace Steam sterilization
Hydroculture Aquaculture Aquaponics Hydroponics Aeroponics
Related Agribusiness Agricultural cooperative Agricultural supplies Agricultural science Agricultural engineering Agricultural technology Digital Biotechnology Agroforestry Agronomy Animal husbandry Animal-free agriculture Cash crop Cellular agriculture Cultural methods Contract farming Extensive farming Farm Farmhouse Feed ratio Free range Horticulture Intensive farming animals pigs crops Mechanised agriculture Organic farming Paludiculture Permaculture Plantation Polyculture Rice-duck farming Rice-fish system Sustainable agriculture Sustainable food system Universities and colleges Urban agriculture
Lists Agriculturist profession Agricultural machinery Food origins Government ministries Universities and colleges
Categories Agricultural machinery Agriculture by country Agriculture companies Biotechnology History of agriculture Livestock Meat industry Poultry farming Agriculture and the environment
Agriculture portal
v t e

Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegetation, or "slash", is then left to dry, usually right before the rainiest part of the year. Then, the biomass is burned, resulting in a nutrient-rich layer of ash which makes the soil fertile, as well as temporarily eliminating weed and pest species. After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases due to depletion of nutrients along with weed and pest invasion, causing the farmers to abandon the field and move to a new area. The time it takes for a swidden to recover depends on the location and can be as little as five years to more than twenty years, after which the plot can be slashed and burned again, repeating the cycle.^[1][2] In Bangladesh and India, the practice is known as jhum or jhoom.^[3][4][5]

Slash-and-burn is a type of shifting cultivation, an agricultural system in which farmers routinely move from one cultivable area to another. A rough estimate is that 250 million people worldwide use slash-and-burn.^{[6][better source needed]} Slash-and-burn causes temporary deforestation. Ashes from the burnt trees help farmers by providing nutrients for the soil.^[7] In low density of human population this approach is very sustainable but the technique is not scalable for large human populations.^[8]

A similar term is assarting, which is the clearing of forests, usually (but not always) for the purpose of agriculture. Assarting does not include burning.^[9]