subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture (also known as self sufficiency in terms of agriculture) is a method of farming in which farmers plan to grow only enough food to feed the family farming, pay taxes or feudal dues, and perhaps provide a small marketable surplus. Subsistence agriculture usually refers to a farm that is enough to feed the family but will not be enough for the family to participate extensively in the cash market. The typical subsistence farm has the range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat during the year. Planting decisions are made with an eye to what the family will need during the coming year, rather than market prices. Tony Waters (2007:2) writes that "Subsistence peasants are people who grow what they eat, build their own houses, and live without regularly making purchases in the marketplace."
Subsistence grain-growing agriculture (predominantly wheat and barley) first emerged during the Neolithic era when humans started to settle in the Nile, Eurphrates, and Indus River Valleys. It was the dominant mode of production in the the world until very recently when market-based capitalism became important. Subsistence horticulture may have developed earlier in South East Asia and Papua New Guinea.
Subsistence farming continues today in large parts of up-country Africa (see Hyden 1981), and other countries of Asia and South America. Subsistence agriculture had by and large disappeared in Europe by the beginning of World War I, and in North America with the movement of share croppers and tenant farmers out of the American South and Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s (Waters 2007:127-129).
Effects on the environment
Subsistence farming is done without purchased fertilizers. Mechanization is with draft animals which can be fed and raised on the farm.
In areas which are sparsely populated, subsistence agriculture can be sustainable for a long time. In more densely populated areas, subsistence agriculture may deplete the soil of nutrients, and damage the environment.
One form of subsistence agriculture is shifting cultivation or swidden, a practice common with rain fed agricultural systems. Farmers typically abandon a given plot when soil fertility wanes and move on to more fertile land, often utilizing slash and burn techniques. A considerable fallow period ensues on the abandoned land. it takes up a least land among the 4 types of cultivation but it is only enough for the family.
Opposite
References
Goran Hyden. Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured Peasantry. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1980.
Charles Sellers. The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846. New York: Oxford University Press. 1991.
Tony Waters. The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture: life beneath the level of the marketplace. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2007.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
