ABSTRACT
Development planners and policy makers perceive the practice of shifting cultivation as subsistence economically unviable and environmentally destructive and hence, a major hurdle to the development of the region. Governments, therefore, have consistently tried to replace it with settled agriculture, allocating substantial financial outlays through successive Five Year Plans since the early 1970s. As long as the upland communities were insular, isolated and unassimilated to the market economy, shifting cultivation was sufficient to meet all their needs, including that of food security. Programmes targeted towards transformation of shifting cultivation were initiated in the 1970s with a thrust on horticulture and cash crop promotion. Coffee, rubber and cashew plantations besides horticultural crops such as pineapple and citrus were established under various government schemes as alternatives to shifting cultivation. Cash crops being promoted by different departments—tea, coffee, rubber, cashewnut—require relatively larger land parcels and significant investments.
