Subsistence farming, form of farming in which nearly all of the crops or livestock raised are used to maintain the farmer and the farmer’s family, leaving little, if any, surplus for sale or trade. Preindustrial
Pre-industrial society
Pre-industrial society refers to social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which occurred from 1750 to 1850. Pre-industrial is a time before there were machines and tools to help perform tasks en masse.
agricultural peoples throughout the world have traditionally practiced subsistence farming. Why is it called subsistence farming?
What is subsistence agriculture?
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families. In subsistence agriculture, farm output is targeted to survival and is mostly for local requirements with little or no surplus.
What is subsistence farming in the Middle Ages?
Subsistence farms usually consist of no more than a few acres, and farm technology tends to be primitive and of low yield. Italian agriculture was organized for subsistence first; growing crops exclusively for sale was rare in the early Middle Ages. Thus, rents…
What are the features of primitive subsistence agriculture?
The primitive subsistence agriculture or shifting cultivation is characterised by the following features: (i) Sites for the ladang are usually selected in the virgin forest by the experienced elders. Hill slopes are preferred because of better drainage. Many ladangs are located in the remote interiors, far from the main population centres.
What is the root word of Agriculture?
The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager ‘field’ and cultūra ‘ cultivation ‘ or ‘growing’. While agriculture usually refers to human activities, certain species of ant, termite and beetle have been cultivating crops for up to 60 million years.
Which is a form of subsistence agriculture?
Types of subsistence agriculture include: Shifting cultivation A.K.A Slash and Burn, Pastoral Nomadism, and both types of intensive subsistence. Types of commercial agriculture include: Mixed crop and livestock, Ranching, Dairying, Grain Farming, Mediterranean, Truck, and Plantation farming.
What type of farmer is a subsistence producer of food?
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no surplus.
What are the 3 forms of subsistence agriculture?
Subsistence Agricultural Regions: Shifting cultivation (2) Pastoral nomadism (3) Intensive subsistence: wet rice dominant (4)
Which one of the following is the example of subsistence farming?
Shifting cultivation is a type/ example of subsistence farming in which the farmers clear a patch of forest land by cutting and burning trees and then crops are grown. This type of farming is practiced to meet the needs of the farmer’s family.
Where is the most subsistence farmers?
Sub-Saharan AfricaSubsistence farming is the most widely used agricultural method in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the majority of the rural poor depend on their land for survival.
Where is subsistence farming?
Subsistence farming, which today exists most commonly throughout areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and parts of South and Central America, is an extension of primitive foraging practiced by early civilizations. Historically, most early farmers engaged in some form of subsistence farming to survive.
What is a plantation farmer?
Plantation farming was a system of agriculture in which large farms in the American colonies used the forced labor of slaves to plant and harvest cotton, rice, sugar, tobacco and other farm produce for trade and export.
What is peasant farming in agriculture?
Peasant farming is an agricultural mode of production, defined by ten interconnected rules, such as seeking self-sufficiency in all of the farm’s operations, respecting the surrounding environment (including local communities), and sparing scarce resources such as gas and water.
What are the types of subsistence farming class 8?
Subsistence farming can be further categorized as intensive subsistence and primitive subsistence farming.Intensive Subsistence Farming: In this type of farming, the farmer cultivates on a small plot of land. … Primitive Subsistence Farming: Shifting cultivation and nomadic herding come under this type of farming.
What do you mean by subsistence farming?
subsistence farming, form of farming in which nearly all of the crops or livestock raised are used to maintain the farmer and the farmer’s family, leaving little, if any, surplus for sale or trade. Preindustrial agricultural peoples throughout the world have traditionally practiced subsistence farming.
Why is Indian agriculture called subsistence agriculture?
Indian agriculture is known as subsistence agriculture : In India most of the farmers produce crops for self – consumption only (in their small holdings ) instead of selling the crops. This is referred as subsistence agriculture.
Why is subsistence agriculture Practised in India?
Answer: Explanation: Subsistence agriculture is still practiced in certain parts of the country due to following reasons: (i) Small farmers have smaller landholdings which are uneconomical. (ii) Poor farmers don’t have expensive fertilizers and high yielding varieties of seeds.
What is subsistence farming with example?
Subsistence farming is providing enough for a small group to survive. An example would be of a family growing just enough food from their garden to…
What are the 3 major types of subsistence agriculture?
The three major types of subsistence agriculture found in the article are Shifting Agriculture, Primitive Farming, and Intensive Subsistence Farming.
Where is subsistence agriculture done?
Subsistence agriculture is done all over the world. Many communities experiencing poverty can find alleviation utilizing the methods of subsistence…
What is subsistence farming?
Agriculture in Vietnam. Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no surplus.
How is subsistence agriculture used?
Subsistence agriculture can be used as a poverty alleviation strategy , specifically as a safety net for food-price shocks and for food security. Poor countries are limited in fiscal and institutional resources that would allow them to contain rises in domestic prices as well as to manage social assistance programs, which is often because they are using policy tools that are intended for middle- and high-income countries. Low-income countries tend to have populations in which 80% of poor are in rural areas and more than 90% of rural households have access to land, yet a majority of these rural poor have insufficient access to food. Subsistence agriculture can be used in low-income countries as a part of policy responses to a food crisis in the short and medium term, and provide a safety net for the poor in these countries.
What are some examples of livestock?
Examples are the nomadic Bhotiyas and Gujjars of the Himalayas. They carry their belongings, such as tents, etc., on the backs of donkeys, horses, and camels. In mountainous regions, like Tibet and the Andes, yak and llama are reared. Reindeer are the livestock in arctic and sub-arctic areas.
How many people were farmers in 2015?
In 2015, about 2 billion people (slightly more than 25% of the world’s population) in 500 million households living in rural areas of developing nations survive as ” smallholder ” farmers, working less than 2 hectares (5 acres) of land.
What is the name of the farming method that involves bringing animals from one place to another?
Nomadic herding. In this type of farming people migrate along with their animals from one place to another in search of fodder for their animals. Generally they rear cattle, sheep, goats, camels and/or yaks for milk, skin, meat and wool.
Who said subsistence peasants grow what they eat?
Tony Waters writes: “Subsistence peasants are people who grow what they eat, build their own houses, and live without regularly making purchases in the marketplace.”. Despite the primacy of self-sufficiency in subsistence farming, today.
Is agriculture sustainable?
This form of agriculture is sustainable at low population densities, but higher population loads require more frequent clearing which prevents soil fertility from recovering, opens up more of the forest canopy, and encourages scrub at the expense of large trees, eventually resulting in deforestation and land erosion.
What is the last residua of hunter-gatherer societies and subsistence agriculture?
In the modern world, the last residua of hunter–gatherer societies and subsistence agriculture struggle with globalized economic power: the modern and the postmodern conditions sometimes co-exist in close, yet problematic contiguity (Harvey 1989 ). From being marginal to the order of things, conscious economic rationality is now for many ‘life’ itself. ‘Economic life’ tends to absorb, transmute, and meld ‘reality’ into seamless economies of virtualized simulacra, a globalized maya, outside of which there would appear to be no fulcrum for a critical ideology or politics of resistance (Baudrillard 1981 ). In a world in which the virtual exerts hegemony over the residual real the cosmos is silent; yet ambiguous opportunities abound, not least for women seeking freedom from both biological and social construction, as cyborg, prosthetic, and virtual cultures are created and colonized. After the so-called ‘End of History,’ leading sociologists of religion such as Steven Bruce and Bryan Wilson continue to represent religion as subject to terminal attrition by an inevitable process of secularization. Regarded thus, religion can no longer be a resource for the culturally significant critique of total human submission to the dictates of ‘economic life.’ Little would seem left for the researcher into the relation of religion and economic life other than to report on the final stages of religious decline.
How does subsistence agriculture affect HIV?
Farming systems that exhibit a high degree of seasonality of labor demand, significant specialization by age and sex, high interdependence of labor inputs , increasing returns to scale of labor, and low substitutability of labor for capital tend to be particularly vulnerable. Studies have shown significant and enduring impacts. Labor loss occurs not only as a result of sickness and premature adult death, but also due to reallocation of labor to nurse the ill, and siphoning off of working capital to pay medical bills.
Overview
Types of subsistence farming
In this type of farming, a patch of forest land is cleared by a combination of felling (chopping down) and burning, and crops are grown. After 2–3 years the fertility of the soil begins to decline, the land is abandoned and the farmer moves to clear a fresh piece of land elsewhere in the forest as the process continues. While the land is left fallow the forest regrows in the cleared area and soil fertility and biomass is restored. After a decade or more, the farmer may return to the first pie…
History
Subsistence agriculture was the dominant mode of production in the world until recently, when market-based capitalism became widespread.
Subsistence agriculture largely disappeared in Europe by the beginning of the twentieth century. It began to decrease in North America with the movement of sharecroppers and tenant farmers out of the American South and Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s. In Central and Eastern Europe, …
Contemporary practices
Subsistence farming continues today in large parts of rural Africa, and parts of Asia and Latin America. In 2015, about 2 billion people (slightly more than 25% of the world’s population) in 500 million households living in rural areas of developing nations survive as “smallholder” farmers, working less than 2 hectares (5 acres) of land. Around 98% of China’s farmers work on small farms, and China accounts for around half of the total world farms. In India, 80% of the total farmers ar…
Poverty alleviation
Subsistence agriculture can be used as a poverty alleviation strategy, specifically as a safety net for food-price shocks and for food security. Poor countries are limited in fiscal and institutional resources that would allow them to contain rises in domestic prices as well as to manage social assistance programs, which is often because they are using policy tools that are intended for middle- and high-income countries. Low-income countries tend to have populations in which 80…
See also
• Back-to-the-land movement
• Cash crop
• Commercial agriculture
• Extensive agriculture
• Hoe-farming
Further reading
• Charles Sellers (1991). The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Sir Albert Howard (1943). An Agricultural Testament. Oxford University Press.
• Tony Waters (2010). “Farmer Power: The continuing confrontation between subsistence farmers and development bureaucrats”/