French term (edited): agriculture itin�rante sur br�lis

Your French expression seems to combine a couple of the common English terms, including "shifting cultivation" which covers the "itinérante" bit but which is included in any case in "swidden farming/agriculture/cultivation", and "slash and burn" which includes the notion of "brûlis".

I have always called "agriculture sur brûlis" (I've never encountered the added mention of "itinérante") "swidden farming".


If Boserup idea of shortening fallow being an historical trend is valid, then the earliest and least intensive form of agriculture = long-fallow ("forest-fallow")
This system often termed swidden or slash-and-burn or shifting cultivation; common in tropics, but once much more widespread (incl. prehistoric Europe)
Typical features of swidden systems:
1) small areas of forest or brush cleared with slash & burn method (releases nutrients held in plant tissues)
2) soil prepared with dibble stick or hoe (no plowing)
3) human labor provides full work inputs (other than fire)
4) no use of fertilizers (other than wood ash)
5) no irrigation systems (rainfall watering)
6) usually multi-crop gardens, high plant diversity (e.g., up to 40 species in single garden of Hanunoo in Philippines)
7) short cropping period (1-3 yrs) followed by long fallow (>20 yrs)
8) hence most land lies fallow at any one point, requiring large amount of land per capita
Because most agronomists, economists, and anthropologists come from societies based on intensive (short-fallow) systems, swidden has often been portrayed as wasteful, ignorant, "primitive," and environmentally destructive
(In addition, swidden peoples typically self-sufficient, hence looked down on by gov't agencies, who are interested in extracting agricultural surplus for taxation or trade)
However, starting in 1950s, anthros and geographers began analyzing swidden systems carefully, and found that as practiced by indigenous or long-resident populations they are sophisticated and sustainable adaptation in many environments
http://courses.washington.edu/anth457/agintens.htm

Swidden Agriculture and Indigenous Knowledge in the Eastern Himalayas. Swidden
cultivation, also known as shifting cultivation or jhum, taungya or dongya in ...
www.icimod.org/focus/indigenous/swidden.htm

Slash and burn agriculture (also known more neutrally as shifting cultivation or swidden-fallow agriculture) is a agricultural system widely used in forested areas. Although it was practised historically in temperate regions, it is most widely associated with tropical agriculture today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swidden_farming