SLASH AND BURN FARMING IS A BAD FARMING PRACTICE

WHAT IS SLASH AND BURN FARMING?

Slash and burn farming is a form of shifting agriculture where the natural vegetation is cut down and burned as a method of clearing the land for cultivation, and then, when the plot becomes infertile, the farmer moves to a new fresh plot and does the same again.  This process is repeated over and over.

Negative Aspects of Slash and Burn

Many critics claim that slash and burn agriculture contributes to a number of reoccurring problems specific to the environment. They include:

• Deforestation: When practiced by large populations, or when fields are not given sufficient time for vegetation to grow back, there is a temporary or permanent loss of forest cover.
• Erosion: When fields are slashed, burned, and cultivated next to each other in rapid succession, roots and temporary water storages are lost and unable to prevent nutrients from leaving the area permanently.
• Nutrient Loss: For the same reasons, fields may gradually lose the fertility they once had. The result may be desertification, a situation in which land is infertile and unable to support growth of any kind.
• Biodiversity Loss: When plots of land area cleared, the various plants and animals that lived there are swept away. If a particular area is the only one that holds a particular species, slashing and burning could result in extinction for that species. Because slash and burn agriculture is often practiced in tropical regions where biodiversity is extremely high, endangerment and extinction may be magnified.

The negative aspects above are interconnected, and when one happens, typically another happens also. These issues may come about because of irresponsible practices of slash and burn agriculture by a large amount of people. Knowledge of the ecosystem of the area and agricultural skills could prove very helpful in the safe, sustainable use of slash and burn agriculture.

Sustainable Agriculture

What Is Sustainable Agriculture?

Sustainable agriculture is the production of food, materials, or animals using farming techniques that preserve the environment for future use. With the population of the Earth growing explosively and the available resources being rapidly consumed, it has become imperative for farmers to consider the practices of sustainable agriculture. Without consideration for the future of the environment, the world could very soon enter a food crisis.

What Are the Benefits of Sustainable Agriculture?

Sustainable agriculture seeks to eliminate all of the aforementioned problems. Pesticides, fertilizers, and artificial growth hormones are eliminated entirely from agricultural production. Therefore, the food produced has no risk of harming the consumer and does not contribute to any chemicals in the water or air supply.

Further, whereas the typical farm is a single crop farm, sustainable agriculture often raises more than one crop or product on a single farm. This allows crop rotation to take place, wherein one crop can renew the nutrients that another has taken up in the previous season. Also, livestock on the farm can be used to naturally fertilize the soil. This method of rotation ensures the health of the environment each year for further use. Non-sustainable farming, on the other hand, simply uses the land until it has nothing left to give.

Water is also managed sustainably, with research being done to ensure that water is not being used faster than it is renewed at the source. This often means fewer farming plots in an area or simply a highly-efficient water system such as drip irrigation. Sustainable farmers plant only those types of plants that naturally thrive in their area’s climate so that the crops are more likely to thrive from what the earth can produce rather than what a farmer can provide the crop.

Finally, animals are allowed to live outside and are fed by the land they graze upon. They are allowed to build healthy muscles through exercise and do not accumulate any genetically modified substances or growth hormones in their systems. This ensures their natural growth, leading to meat that is safe for humans to consume.