What exactly does slash-and-burn farming mean?

"Slash and burn" is my country's traditional agricultural management method in the Neolithic period. It refers to using tools to cut down dead roots and stems of trees on the ground, drying the grass and trees, and then burning them with fire. The land becomes soft, and the production model of using surface vegetation ash as fertilizer, no longer fertilizing after sowing, and replanting a year after planting, is also considered to be the oldest agricultural farming method in my country.

As production tools evolved from stone knives, stone chisels, stone axes, and wooden sticks to iron knives, hoes, and plows, cultivated crops evolved from a single rice to rice, corn, beans, miscellaneous grains, and even sugar cane and oil crops. As for cash crops, the farming methods have also evolved from slash-and-burn cultivation and land clearing to rotational cultivation, rotational multiple cropping and multi-cropping farming systems.

Extended information:

Although this agricultural production method is backward, it is the result of the adaptation of people who have lived in this environment for a long time, and it is also the summary of long-term practice. Compared with other agricultural production methods, slash-and-burn migrant agriculture requires more land per person.

But it still has the disadvantages of migratory agriculture. Migrant agriculture is a kind of self-sufficient natural agriculture. It can only meet people's minimum food needs and has no remaining products for exchange. In migratory agriculture, few animals are raised. The animals raised can only be eaten during religious festivals or other festivals, so people's nutritional makeup lacks protein. Fishing and hunting can partially supplement this deficiency.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Expert: "Slash and Burn" or non-primitive economic rice farming model

Baidu Encyclopedia - Slash and Burn