2. Agriculture
a. Shifted Cultivators
A shifted cultivator is a term used for people who are landless farmers and they move into rainforest areas to establish a small-scale farming operation. These landless farmers follow the roads which lead them to already parts of damaged rainforest areas or they clear the forest by slashing and burning. The additional damages they contribute are very extensive. According to Colchester and Lohmann, “shifted cultivators are currently blamed for 60% of tropical forest loss.”
One of the main reasons why these people are called ‘shifted’ cultivators is because most of these people have been forced off their own land. Most of them have had their land stolen by the government and corporations, who want to use the space as some kind of plantation. These landless farmers become ‘shifted cultivators’ and move into rainforest areas to support themselves and their families. One can say that large-scale agriculture, logging, mining, etc. are all responsible for the deprivation of a poor families possession of poor families, which leads them to damage tropical forests without any previous knowledge of what damages they are causing.
Colchester and Lohmann states that one of the primary reasons of landless migrants moving into the forest is the unfair distribution of agricultural land. In Brazil, about 42% of cultivated land is owned by one percent of the population. Once these ‘shifted cultivators’ are displaced, they move into the forest areas. Most of the time the government encourages them to move into the forest. The government creates slogans that read, “Land without men for men without land.” After some time, these farmers face a problem. The soil does not remain fertile long enough because of poor nutrients in it, so farmers are not able to reuse the same land year after year. They are then forced to move on deeper into the rainforest and destroying the forest little by little.
It is obvious that the ‘shifted cultivators have become the agents in the destruction of tropical forests but they are not the cause. Shifted cultivators do not move into areas where it has been untouched but they follow roads that are made primary for logging operations. Shifted cultivators are often used as scapegoats by the timber industry, but logging roads is estimated to be 90% of the destruction caused by the slash and burn farmers.
I think the only solution for the end of shifted cultivators is if the government of certain countries like Brazil are in favor of the peasants. Then many of these farmers will not enter the forests and will lead to less of a destruction of slashes and burns caused by them
b. Cash Crops & Cattle Ranching
Another issue, that is important, is the usage of undisturbed and logged areas in the rainforest. They are being cleared to provide land for food crops and/or grazing cattle. Much of the produce that are grown are exported to rich industrialized countries. As seen in many cases, the crops that are grown are for export while the general public are going hungry.
As seen with the ‘shifted cultivators,’ the ability to grow cash crops on rainforest soils declines very fast, usually within a few years. Cash crops is a term that is used for these farmers because they are planting to make money quickly. It’s either that they have no knowledge or they just don’t care, but these farmers have little concern about the environmental damages that they are causing.
Farmers try using modern machinery, fertilizers and pesticides to maximize their profits. The land they are farming on is used intensively and abused. What these farmers don‘t realize because they are ‘money hungry‘ is that land needs love and care. If these farmers continue to abuse the land their just going to see themselves moving deeper and deeper into the forest, while on the way damaging the forests that help our environment.
Another issue is cattle ranching. Just like the other agriculture issues, cattle damages the land to an extent that it is not useable. So, these cattle ranchers just move more and more and destroying the rainforest.
Because of these farmers, not only has the forest been partially destroyed but the land has been taken advantaged of. They have stripped all the nutrients and left it bare.
Colchester and Lohmann states that one of the solutions to either stop or reduce the agriculture farming is, “Reducing the demand for Southern-produced agribusiness crops and alleviating the pressure from externally-financed development projects and assistance is the essential first step"
2. Agriculture