Swidden practices have often been viewed as highly destructive and only used by poor, upland farmers. However, that perception is changing as the practice itself changes.
Part 2 of the changing story of swidden agriculture. Read parts 1 and 3
Researchers working on swidden agriculture showcased the changes at an international seminar in the Philippines in March 2015, discussing how the shifts can have socio-economic and environmental impacts.
The research team are part of a systematic review of long-fallow swidden systems in Southeast Asia, led by the University of Melbourne with the World Agroforestry Centre Philippines and a number of other Australian universities. The review is supported by the Evidence Based Forestry program of the Center for International Forestry Research and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.
Swidden, also called shifting agriculture, is the intermittent clearing of forests in order to grow staple food crops. A long fallow period follows after the first few harvests, which restores the productivity of the land, and some of the forest.
