Shifting cultivation
In the tropical developing world, shifting cultivation in its many diverse forms, remains a pervasive practice. Shifting cultivation was one of the first forms of agriculture practiced by humans and its survival into the modern world suggests that it is a flexible and highly adaptive means of production. However, it is also a grossly misunderstood practice. Many casual observers cannot see past the clearing and burning of standing forest and do not perceive often ecologically stable cycles of cropping and fallowing. Nevertheless, shifting cultivation systems are particularly susceptible to rapid increases in population and to economic and social change in the larger world around them. The blame for the destruction of forest resources is often laid on shifting cultivators. But the forces bringing about the rapid loss of tropical forests at the end of the 20th century are the same forces that led to the destruction of the forests of Europe, urbanization, industrialization, increased affluence, populational growth and geographical expansion and the application the latest technology to extract ever more resources from the environment in pursuit of wealth and political power by competing groups. However we must know that those who practice Agriculture are at the receiving end of the social stratum. [citation needed]