The shifting cultivators grow food grains, vegetables and also cash crops. In fact, the grower aims at growing in his land everything that he needs for his family consumption.
Among the food grains, the coarse varieties of rice followed by maize, millet, Job's tears and small millets are the principal crops. Cotton, ginger, linseed, rapeseeds, sesamum, pineapple and jute are the important cash crops grown in jhum fields. Among the vegetables, soyabeans, potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, yams, tapiocas, chillies, beans, onions, arums are cultivated. Tobacco and indigo are also grown.