Highly specialized regime

highly specialized regime, a heavy dependency on water-born minerals for nutrition, a

reliance on man-made water works and a stable equilibrium...” (1963: 36-37).

Since the Neolithic era, extensive areas of forest land have been farmed every year

under conditions of shifting cultivation. Today the total areas of shifting cultivation

have been estimated to be fourteen million square miles inhabited by two hundred

million people worldwide (FAO staff 1959:9 as cited in Conklin, 1961). In the eastern

Himalayan region, shifting cultivation is the most prominent farming system

providing a way of life for large numbers of ethnic-group minorities and other poor

and marginalized communities (Kerchoff and Sharma, 2006).

“...It is recognized that shifting cultivation is the key to livelihoods of many ethnic,

indigenous and tribal groups in the tropical and subtropical highland of Asia, Africa

as well as Latin America. It is one of the most complex and multifaceted form of

traditional agro forestry in the world reflecting robust traditional ecological

knowledge. It has evolved as a traditional practice and is an institutionalized resource

management mechanism ensuring ecological security and food security thus

providing a social safety net for local communities...” (Anderson, et al., 2007:5).

1.1 Statement of Research Problem

Shifting cultivation is a locally determined and well defined pattern (Gurung, 1999). It

is also the traditional mode of adaptation to the local cultural, environmental situation

(Ibid). “Anthropologists very often relate shifting cultivation to types or stages of

human culture. They point out that most shifting cultivators use primitive tools that

they belongs to culture that are otherwise primitive in a number of ways. Some view it

more as an ancient practice rooted in history, than a contemporary means of coping

with the need to produce food” (Found 1987:17-18).

However, Dhakal (2000) says that the understanding and explanation of shifting

cultivation is understood as the primitive, elementary, and earliest stage of

agricultural evolution, which is surpassed by the permanent cultivation is inadequate.

It is an integral part of socio-cultural practices of a particular community and its

rationale and meanings are inseparably interwoven with the cultural and social

practices. Furthermore, the studies suggests (presented by Lansing: 1991, Spencer:

1996, and Conklin: 1961 as cited in Dhakal, 2000: 105-6) shifting cultivation is not

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