Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers

OBSERVATIONS FROM ABROAD In addition to J. Granville Jensen, who spent a sabbatical leave on field work in Mexico, Joseph E. Spencer spent part of his sabbatical leave as FuIbright Lecturer in Geography, University of Malaya, Singapore; he ulsit has a Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Travel Grant John G. Rice, a graduate student in geography, spent a year in Australi.i with a Fulbright Scholarship, University of Sydney; J. Ross Mackay continued his Arctic field work under Canadian Government auspices; and Donald W. Meinig was Fulbright Research Scholar in Historical Geographv. University of Adelaide. Preliminary Notes on Shifting Cultivation in Southeastern Asia Throughout the tropics there remains actively in use an early system of agriculture commonly known as shifting cultivation, to which manv other names and descriptive terms also have been applied. Customarily, geographers , and other scholars as well, define shifting cultivation rather simplv, think of it rather loosely, and classify it as a single system. It is considered a primitive subsistence cropping system whose chief distinguishing characteristics are defined as involving: 1.Practice chiefly bv primitive peoples, in small populations; 2.The use of a few simple tools only; 3.Clearing of fields by cutting, slashing, and felling, and using fire to dispose of the debris when it has dried; 4.Frequent shifting of fields from place to place, with the abandonment of fields once cropped; 5.Mixed planting of many crop plants in die same field; T, Use of predominantly annual and short-term food crops; 7.Little if any preparation of the soil prior to planting, and little if any weeding, cultivation, or other care; 8.Use of crops primarily for subsistence; 9.Low per-acre and per-man yields, with few surpluses; 10. Destruction of valuable timber and serious soil erosion. Preliminary field observations in earlier years had suggested that it was no more accurate to describe the shifting cultivation of southeastern Asia in such simple terms, and as a single system, than it is to describe all midlatitude sedentary agriculture in equally simple terms and as a single system. Therefore, while on sabbatical leave during the academic year 1957-1958, I spent variable periods of time in the Philippines, British Borneo, Thailand, Malaya, Ceylon, and India examining the practice of shifting cultivation by a wide range of peoples in different geographical environments operating 49 under quite different economic patterns. There follow a few preliminary observations on shifting cultivation as actually practiced in parts of southeastern Asia at present. In time I hope to complete a monograph which will fully review the subject for southeastern Asia. Shifting cultivation is now used by all kinds of people, of all levels of culture, whenever the circumstances indicate that it is a good system to employ. In many frontier regions.it is the system utilized by the permanent settler during the first years of occupation of land destined to become a permanent farm. Such pioneers often follow the lumbermen. Since trucks, bulldozers, and other heavy machinery are normally employed by lumbermen , there are not only roads for access, but there is frequently much destruction of over-age and faulty trees and undergrowth, the equipment has frequently chewed up patches of surface soils, and the task of clearing ground for cropping is significantly lessened. Burning remains the chief technique employed to dispose of vegetative debris, but not every fire indicates shifting cultivation. Plantation developers similarly employ fire, and much of the destruction of forest cover is a phase of the growth of a permanent agricultural landscape, with or without previous extraction of good timber. Fire often does destroy much young timber, fires do escape control, and no portion of southeastern Asia as yet has developed effective controls over fire. In many regions, however, forest preserves, state forests, and reforestation are multiplying future timber resources in impressive totals. In regions in which shifting cultivation is a continuing system in current application, the patterns of field-shift are bewilderingly complex, in many cases. Seldom is the shifting a hit-and-miss matter. There are only a few regions in which the shift still is unidirectional in the long term, leaving in its wake a young plant cover which may or...