The second question about any farm is who eats what it grows. This cuts across the intensive and extensive split, so every farm gets two labels.
Key idea
Subsistence farmers grow food mainly to feed their own families, selling little. Commercial farmers grow crops and raise animals to sell, often to distant markets.
| Intensive | Extensive | |
|---|---|---|
| Subsistence | Intensive subsistence: wet rice in East and South Asia | Shifting cultivation in tropical forests; pastoral nomadism in dry lands |
| Commercial | Market gardening, dairy, feedlots, plantations | Ranching, large grain farms |
Why it works
Subsistence farming is common where incomes are low, roads to markets are few, and families need a sure food supply. Commercial farming grows with roads, cities and trade, and it often becomes agribusiness: farming linked with companies that supply seed and machines and that process, ship and sell the food. Commercial farms often grow one crop on a large scale (monoculture), which is efficient but can raise risks from pests and price swings.
Worked example: Two labels
A family in Bangladesh grows rice on one hectare, working long days and eating most of the harvest. Label it twice.
- Who eats it? The family: subsistence.
- Input per hectare? Very high labor on a small plot: intensive.
Answer: Intensive subsistence farming.
Worked example: Shifting cultivation
A farmer in a rainforest clears and burns a small plot, grows crops for the family for two or three years, then moves on and lets the forest regrow. Label it twice.
- The family eats the crops: subsistence.
- A plot is used for a short time, then rests for many years, so the land per family is large and inputs per hectare are low: extensive.
Answer: Extensive subsistence farming (shifting cultivation, also called slash-and-burn or swidden).
Common mistake
Thinking subsistence farming is always extensive. Shifting cultivation and herding are extensive, but intensive rice farming in Asia is often subsistence too. Answer the two questions separately.