Ecological knowledge of site selection and cultivating methods of kaonde shifting cultivators in northwestern zambia

This paper describes the cropping system of bujimi slash-and-bum cultivation by the Kaonde people in northwestern Zambia. Bujimi cultivation included three cropping systems; monde, making ash patches; milala, making mounds; and masengele, making flat fields. In order to open the bujimi fields, the Kaonde people looked for the areas of woodland with one type of grass, Hyparrhenia mutica. They regarded this grass as an important indicator for soil fertility. After they cut down trees, the light conditions were improved and the grass biomass began to increase rapidly. Simultaneously some soil properties of the surface soil, such as the levels of K, Ca, and available P, were improved. The cultivators regarded this grass biomass as a source of food production, and concentrated the biomass with the surface soil for making mounds. Kaonde people selected the woodland with H. mutica in order to promote both grass growth and soil improvement for crop production, avoiding erosion of the fertile topsoil