The Telangana government has decided to move landless, non-tribal farmers engaged in Podu shifting cultivation inside forests to peripheral areas as it looks to combat deforestation.

What is Shifting Cultivation?

• Shifting cultivation is a form of agriculture or a cultivation system, in which, at any particular point in time, a minority of ‘fields’ are in cultivation and a majority are in various stages of natural re-growth.
• Over time, fields are cultivated for a relatively short time, and allowed to recover, or are fallowed, for a relatively long time.
• Eventually, a previously cultivated field will be cleared of the natural vegetation and planted in crops again.
• Fields in established and stable shifting cultivation systems are cultivated and fallowed cyclically.
• This type of farming is also called jhumming in India.

What is Podu?

• Podu is a traditional system of cultivation used by tribes in India, whereby different areas of jungle forest are cleared by burning each year to provide land for crops.
• The word comes from the Telugu language.
• Podu is a form of shifting agriculture using slash-and-burn methods.

Issue in Telangana

• Shifting cultivation continues to be a predominant agricultural practice in many parts of India, despite state discouragement and multipronged efforts.
• Telangana government has red-flagged encroachment of forests by non-tribals, who are indulging in the practice of shifting agriculture (podu).
• Several political leaders have raised the issues of shifting agriculture and deforestation wherein encroachers clear a portion of land.
• The government now wants to shift out all farmers from the forests to the periphery by allotting lands to them for cultivation.

Impact of the move

• Tribal farmers who have been traditionally cultivating for decades will not be affected by this drive against illegal encroachers.
• The government has, in fact, given land ownership titles to tribals.
• Other encroaching farmers will be shifted out.

Back2Basics: Various shifting cultivation in India

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