ABSTRACT
The common image of subsistence farmers in the tropics has people shifting their cultivations frequently from one site to another because of problems with weed control, disease build-up or fertility decline. The Wola practice such shifting cultivation, but they sometimes decide not to move on and may cultivate the same site for decades. They farm some areas of land semi permanently within, as described, the broad context of a shifting cultivation regime. The balance of environmental evidence, observation of large numbers of gardens over many years, and the declarations of local people, indicate that soil fertility is the major constraint on production, the incidence of weed, disease and pest infestation rarely rising to levels sufficient seriously to limit yields (Waller 1985; Bridge & Page 1984; Thistleton & Masandur 1985). A look at the previous chapter’s status data reveals some intriguing trends relating to these issues. The variations in sites and soils, between different types of garden and periods under cultivation, are not of the kind that might be expected, which questions again suppositions about the assumed behaviour of soils under subsistence cultivation in this montane region of the tropics.
