Millets and cereals are grown together, as in multicropping. The mixed crops are sown and harvested on the same plots but at different times of the year, and the women know exactly when the various crops should be harvested. The process of chaffing, cleaning and threshing is done by women right on the SC plots, and the harvested stalks are weeded out immediately, allowing the later varieties to ripen. Women have a good knowledge of the weeds and pests which attack crops and the damage they cause, and take appropriate action. The shifting cultivation plots are ten times the size of settled cultivation plots with comparable yields.
Labour input is high in relation to output.
Weeding and protecting the Khamana or Bogodo lands from animals and birds is tedious work, which women must carry out all year round. Thus these products of the SC agro-ecosystem are organically grown and have a higher nutritional value than those grown with the aid of chemical inputs. They tide the people over during the lean months of the year, when rice is in short supply. In the Juang area, rice is grown on the shifting cultivation plots, along with millets. Not only are these minor millets and pulses a welcome addition to the diet, but at certain times of the year they are also bartered for rice.