Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which a person uses a piece of land, only to abandon or alter the initial use a short time later. This system often involves clearing of a piece of land followed by several years of wood harvesting or farming until the soil loses fertility.
First, farmers have to find a designated spot where they want to plant, somewhere that is close to their villages or settlements. Before they can plant, they have to remove the plants and vegetation that normally covers the land. Using axes and machetes, farmers cut down most of the tall trees, which normally help bring down the smaller tress. Next the farmers burn the debris under carefully controlled conditions. Whenever it rains, the rain comes and washes the fresh ashes into the soil, providing the needed nutrients. The cleared area, is known as a swidden. The cleared land can support crops only up to three years or less. After those three years, the soil nutrients are rapidly depleted and the land becomes too infertile to nourish crops. When the swidden is no longer fertile, the villagers and farmers find a new site to begin clearing out. They leave the old site uncropped for many years, allowing it to go back to its normal vegetation state, this could take up to twenty years
