Systematic Review on Shifting Cultivation in North-East India: Emerging Research Directions

Shifting cultivation, or ‘slash-and-burn’ agriculture, is a age-old agricultural system practiced in South and South-east Asia, including North-east India, using elementary tools and techniques for subsistence crop production. Shifting cultivation was an environmentally sustainable hill agricultural production system, but is currently under threat due to various anthropogenic and natural disturbances. Within the last decade, the sustainability of the practice is under question with the dramatic shortening of the fallow cycle. A suite of factors such as increased pressure to feed the burgeoning population and seizure of public lands, including forests, has compelled shifting cultivators to reduce the fallow period. Therefore, detailed scrutiny of possible barriers and prevailing current mechanisms is needed at cross-sectional levels to resolve the current predicament regarding shifting cultivation practices. This analysis will assist in identifying knowledge gaps to design and guide future research aiming for the sustainability of this socio-ecological system. A systematic literature review of peer-reviewed scientific articles focusing on various domains of shifting cultivation practices in North-east India between 1940 and 2020 was made to synthesise the existing knowledge about the practice. The review identified the uniqueness of mixed cropping in shifting cultivation in North-east India. Arunachal Pradesh contains the greatest diversity of tribal communities practicing shifting cultivation amongst the eight North-east India states. Fallow periods ranged from 4 to 18 years with the longest fallow periods in the state of Meghalaya and the shortest in Assam and Tripura. However, insufficient research has been conducted on the sustainable intensification of shifting cultivation practices thereby restricting the knowledge domain about the existence of the practice in the future. The literature synthesis recommends that future research be reoriented on assessing forest regeneration in shifting cultivation fallow lands and understanding the current socio-ecological linkages within shifting cultivation under global climate change phenomena. The social dimensions need to be evaluated for the sustainability of shifting cultivation practices for biodiversity conservation, land management, and sustainable livelihoods.