Chapter 1 Asia as Cultured Space 31Swidden. The swidden plot often looks like a haphazard field of grain
sown on a hillside amidst blackened stumps and logs (see photo). This is
because a hillside has been burnt of its original forest and undergrowth to allow
sunlight to reach the growing rice. In actuality, the swidden plot is a “general-
ized ecosystem” with a high diversity of species, as many as 40 different species
in one field.
Vegetation debris rapidly decays in the humidity, but this does not produce
the good soils that one might expect. The soil in swidden areas is often a bright
red that is better used for making brick than growing rice. This soil is porous
and crumbly, badly leached of nutrients by the process of lukewarm monsoonal
rainwater soaking downward, carrying away important silicates and bases and
leaving behind an unhealthy mix of iron oxides and clay. Because so few nutri-
ents remain in the upper levels of the soil where shallow plant roots can reach
them, most of the minerals available to crops come from the ash produced in
the burning phase of slash and burn. Between the first and second crop in a
newly burned field, rice production drops as much as 80 percent because of the
leaching process and using up the value of the ash by the first crop. The combi-
nation of loss of soil fertility and weed growth will make swiddeners decide,Wet-rice cultivation is practiced in this newly terraced field. Wet-rice varieties must stand in
water during the first phases of the growth cycle; as the plant matures, the seedlings must be
transplanted from nursery beds to fields where they can continue to grow, an extremely labor
intensive process.