What is subsistence agriculture

 Subsistence Farming: This type of farming is practiced on small patches of land. Primitive tools and family/community labour are used in this type of farming. The farming mainly depends on monsoon and natural fertility of soil. Crops are grown as per the suitability of the environmental condition.

This is also called <i>‘slash and burn’</i> agriculture. A patch of land is cleared by slashing the vegetation and then the slashed plants are burnt. The ash; thus obtained is mixed with the soil and crops are grown.

This type of farming produces just enough crops to sustain the family. After a couple of seasons, the patch is left fallow and a new patch of land is prepared for farming. This allows the earlier patch of land to replenish its fertility through the natural process.

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. Some of these peoples moved from site to site as they exhausted the soil at each location. As urban centres grew, agricultural production became more specialized and commercial farming developed, with farmers producing a sizable surplus of certain crops, which they traded for manufactured goods or sold for cash