Abstract
Shifting cultivation has traditionally been characterized as a highly productive system in terms of the ratio of energy outputs to inputs. This characterization, however, does not take into account the energy contribution of the natural vegetation cleared in preparing the field for cultivation. As a result, the central feature of shifting cultivation, the exploitation of the natural vegetationsoil complex as a substitute for human labor, has been ignored. The omission of the biomass contribution can be attributed to both a focus on the practices involved rather than the underlying strategy of the shifting cultivator, and an excessive preoccupation with the renewability of the energy sources involved in different agricultural systems. A definition of shifting cultivation is proposed that focuses attention on the relationship between the natural vegetationsoil complex and the shifting cultivator. Two methods of including the energy contribution of forest biomass in calculating the productivity of shifting cultivation systems are compared. When the biomass contribution is included, shifting cultivation appears to be an extremely unproductive system of agriculture.
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