Subsistence farming
Topic: Land Reforms, the Green Revolution and Farm Subsidies · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Subsistence farming is farming mainly to feed the farmer's own household. Very little is left to sell. That leftover is called the marketable surplus: output minus the family's own needs for food, seed and feed. Subsistence farming is typical of small holdings that use traditional methods. It matters because when farmers eat most of what they grow, a rise in output does little for the wider economy.
Example
Around 1950, a family on a small, rain-fed plot in India grows grain with old seed and no fertiliser. After keeping food for the year and seed for the next season, almost nothing is left to take to the market.
Don't confuse with
- Commercial farming: here crops are grown mainly for sale, like the cotton, jute and indigo that some colonial farmers grew for British industry.
- Marketed surplus: this is what farmers actually sell. Subsistence farmers have little marketable surplus, so their marketed surplus is small too.