Why isn't slash and burn agriculture effective in the long run?

Answer 1

Barely one step above the economics of the apes, slash and burn agriculture requires unlimited territory and generations of undisturbed time. It may be argued that the Manned Space Program, with its monkey dream taking Capitalism to the stars from an exhausted Earth, is a feature of slash and burn on a global scale.

It is, because if you cut down the trees, you are providing less oxygen, and if we keep doing this, our air will be really dirty. If we keep farming the same plot of land, eventually the ground looses it's nutrients and isn't able to bear crops again. Then it usually dries up and blows away, a process called desertification. In short, slash and burn agriculture causes loss of fertile farming land.