Subsistence Farming

Subsistence farming is the kind of farming done by farmers who have small plots, only grow enough food for themselves. In subsistence agriculture, no extra food is produced to sell or trade. This means farming doesn't give them money to buy things. Subsistence farming may be:shifting farming or nomadic herding (see nomadic people). Subsistence agriculture is when a farmer lives on a small amount of land and produces enough food to feed.

Recent Examples on the Web Large, healthy and diverse habitats with fewer borders on human populations would help, the researchers said, coupled with economic development so that families would not have to take over forest land for subsistence farming.—Its economy, long based on subsistence farming and fishing, now includes a modest tourism industry.—People working in the subsistence farming or informal sector of the economy are among Mexico’s poorest citizens and are especially reliant on remittances from the U.S.

A farmer working on his field on the slopes of (2005).Subsistence agriculture occurs when 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. Planting decisions are made principally with an eye toward what the family will need during the coming year, and secondarily toward market prices. 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 most subsistence farmers also participate in trade to some degree, though usually it is for goods that are not necessary for survival, and may include sugar, iron roofing sheets, bicycles, used clothing, and so forth. Most subsistence farmers today reside in. Although their amount of trade as measured in cash is less than that of consumers in countries with modern complex markets, many have important trade contacts and trade items that they can produce because of their special skills or special access to resources valued in the marketplace. Contents.History Subsistence agriculture was predominant in parts of Asia especially and later emerged in various areas including Mexico, where it was based on, and in the, where it was based on the domestication of the. Subsistence agriculture was the dominant mode of production in the world until recently, when market-based became widespread.

Subsistence may have developed independently in South East Asia and.Subsistence agriculture had largely disappeared in Europe by the beginning of, and in North America with the movement of and tenant farmers out of the American South and Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s. As recently as the 1950s, it was still common on in North America and Europe to grow much of a family's own food and make much of its own clothing, although sales of some of the farm's production earned enough currency to buy certain staples, typically including sugar; coffee and tea; petroleum distillates (petrol, kerosene, fuel oil); textile products such as bolts of cloth, needles, and thread; medicines; hardware products such as nails, screws, and wire; and a few discretionary items such as candy or books. Many of the preceding items, as well as occasional services from physicians, veterinarians, blacksmiths, and others, were often bought with rather than currency. In Central and Eastern Europe subsistence and semi-subsistence agriculture reappeared within the since about 1990. 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 (5 ) of land. Types of subsistence farming Shifting agriculture.

Main article:In this type of agriculture, a patch of forest land is cleared by a combination of felling 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 and biomass is restored. After a decade or more, the farmer may return to the first piece of land. 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.

Shifting cultivation is called dredd in India, ladang in Indonesia, milpa in Central America and Mexico and jhumming in North East India.Primitive farming While this ”” technique may describe the method for opening new land, commonly the farmers in question have in existence at the same time smaller fields, sometimes merely gardens, near the homestead there they practice intensive ”non-shifting' techniques until shortage of fields where they can employ 'slash and burn' to clear land and (by the burning) provide fertilizer (ash). Such gardens near the homestead often regularly receive household refuse, and the manure of any household, chickens or goats are initially thrown into compost piles just to get them out of the way. However, such farmers often recognize the value of such compost and apply it regularly to their smaller fields. They also may irrigate part of such fields if they are near a source of water.In some areas of tropical Africa, at least, such smaller fields may be ones in which crops are grown on raised beds.

Thus farmers practicing ”slash and burn” agriculture are often much more sophisticated agriculturalists than the term 'slash and burn' subsistence farmers suggests.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, sheep, goats, camels and/or yaks for milk, skin, meat and wool. This way of life is common in parts of central and western Asia, India, east and southwest Africa and northern Eurasia. Examples are the nomadic and 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. Sheep, goats, and camels are common animals, and cattle and horses are also important.Intensive subsistence farming In intensive subsistence agriculture, the farmer cultivates a small plot of land using simple tools and more labour. Climate, with large number of days with sunshine and fertile soils permits growing of more than one crop annually on the same plot.

Farmers use their small land holdings to produce enough, for their local consumption, while remaining produce is used for exchange against other goods. It results in much more food being produced per acre compared to other subsistence patterns. In the most intensive situation, farmers may even create terraces along steep hillsides to cultivate rice paddies.

Such fields are found in densely populated parts of Asia,. They may also intensify by using manure, artificial irrigation and animal waste as. Intensive subsistence farming is prevalent in the thickly populated areas of the monsoon regions of south, southwest, and southeast Asia.Poverty alleviation Subsistence agriculture can be used as a poverty alleviation strategy, specifically as a safety net for food-price shocks and for. 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. See also.References.

^ Tony Waters. The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture: life beneath the level of the marketplace. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

2007. Marvin P Miracle, 'Subsistence Agriculture: Analytical Problems and Alternative Concepts', American Journal of Agricultural Economics, May 1968, pp. 292–310. 2011-07-19 at the. Goran Hyden.

Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured Peasantry. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1980. Rapsomanikis, George (2015). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The amazing eternals download.

(PDF) from the original on 2016-05-04. Retrieved 2018-01-11. About two-thirds of the developing world’s 3 billion rural people live in about 475 million small farm households, working on land plots smaller than 2 hectares. No-break space character in publisher= at position 57. 'Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment (AGR ECOSYST ENVIRON)'. Soil Erosion from Shifting Cultivation and Other Smallholder Land Use in Sarawak, Malaysia. 4 (42).

^ de Janvry, Alain; Sadoulet, Elisabeth (2011-06-01). 'Subsistence farming as a safety net for food-price shocks'.

Development in Practice. 21 (4–5): 472–480.Further reading. Charles Sellers (1991). The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846. New York: Oxford University Press. Sir Albert Howard (1943). Oxford University Press.

Tony Waters (2010). '/. Marvin P Miracle (May 1968). 'Subsistence Agriculture: Analytical Problems and Alternative Concepts“, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, pp. 292–310.