Highland Hmong farmers in Thailand have abandoned shifting cultivation of subsistence crops and turned to chemical-intensive cultivation of non-narcotic permanent field cash crops. Three highland communities and Hmong in urban Chiang Mai were studied. Most rural study participants applied chemicals, primarily to control insects, weeds, and fungus, by backpack and machine sprays and by hand. Hmo...

The ancient lowland Maya have been traditionally portrayed as swidden (shifting cultivation) agriculturalists (1). The persistence of the swidden concept has inhibited field inquiry of past modes of lowland subsistence, often preserving what may be an unfounded bias concerning the cultivation techniques employed by the Maya. Moreover, the absence of adequate subsistence research has, in effect,...

In Suriname, the Maroons have practiced shifting cultivation for generations, but now the increasing influence of modern society is causing a trend of decreasing fallow periods with potentially adverse effects for the vulnerable tropical soils. Adoption of appropriate soil fertility management (SFM) practices is currently slow. Combining methods from cultural ecology and environmental psycholog...

To document trends in land use and herbaceous production, 71 field sites sampled among cropped fields, fallow fields and rangelands in the Fakara region (Niger) were monitored from 1994 to 2006. The overall trend in land use confirmed the historical increase of the cropped areas since mid 20th century, at an annual rate of 2% from 1994 to 2006. This trend is the result of changes in the relativ...