This is a type of farming whereby almost all of the crops and even livestock that is kept are mainly to maintain his or her family, and perhaps trading or selling the surplus. Pre Industrial agricultural individuals across the globe have traditionally embraced this kind of farming.

Many of the people who did this kind of farming in the past always moved from one place to another after depleting the soil nutrients in each of the places. As the urban centers started to grow, farming took a twist whereby it became more of commercial farming built by farmers offering a good quantity of surplus of some crops that they traded for manufactured products or even sold out for cash.

As you read this article, this kind of farming continues in several areas in the world and in massive quantities including several regions of sub-Saharan Africa. Subsistence fields are also always of some few acres, and also farm techy is always of a lower level and low harvest.

In which areas Is Intensive subsistence farming practiced?

Are you aware that it is mainly done in the monsoon lands found in Asia? Besides that, this kind of farming can also be found in areas such as:

· South-East  Asia

· China

· India

· Pakistan

· Korea

· Sri Lanka

· Japan

It is also crucial to state that the population of some agricultural regions in Asia is better than those found in the industrial areas in the West. All agricultural practices in the wet lowlands need to be of higher levels to maintain the dense population. You also need to know that several regions of higher levels of this kind of farming such as India and China boast of non-ending records of changes. This is simply due to this kind of farming being the most common activity to sustain their lives.

Types of Subsistence Farming

Forms of subsistence farming have always proven to be the most primitive or rather simplest subsistence farming and intensive subsistence farming.

1. Old or easy subsistence farming

As you may know, simple farming is known to be the first-ever done type of farming and one that is still practiced and preferred in several regions across the globe. From easy and simple farming, there are some groups of people who have decided to move steps ahead on the economic level by finding how to shift from simple agriculture. This form of agriculture is always practiced among farmers who want to plant crops only for themselves and also for their loved ones. And also, some of the surpluses are either sold out for cash or even exchanged for products that they want.

The most likely outcome in the economy remains to be stagnant at one point since there are few chances for advancements, but again, there are higher levels of rural sustainability since farmers are not held to landlords and even by trading centers.

2. Intensive subsistence farming

Intensive subsistence agriculture simply means a kind of farming that is characterized by high output per unit of field and also closely low output per person. Apart from that, this kind of agriculture has gone through lots of changes, and many years back, it has been always more of subsistence.

As much as there are changes, the word “intensive subsistence” is still widely used today to mean agricultural systems that are perceived to be much more complicated when compared to ancient primitive agriculture. In some instances, it is always referred to as the ‘monsoon type of agriculture’.

This type of agriculture has been in place for millennia in many countries found in Asia. It has also undergone advanced changes more so those touching on modernizing the tools used by the introduction of machines that makes nearly everything easier and efficient even though they prove to be expensive for a common farmer to buy.

What are some characteristics of intensive subsistence agriculture?

· Very smallholdings

Here, farms are split through many generations making them so small and at some point non-profitable to operate. In Japan, an average farm size stands to be approximately 0.6 hectares and it gets smaller in places such as India and also other regions across Asia.

Normal farmers plant crops mainly to feed their loved ones but there are some regions that sell the surplus. As opposed to those, in China specifically, fast agricultural changes were witnessed following the agrarian revolution of 1949 when there were smaller farms merged according to a communist agreement into bigger plantations.

· Farming is very intensive

All the farmers are so much in need of land that every piece of land that can be tilled is used for agriculture. The lands are divided only by narrow, simple ridges and also footpaths through which they use to navigate these farms. They are also made to be very squeezed to minimize the space. More land is found by draining swamps, irrigating drier areas, and also terracing hill slopes to come up with flat places that are ideal for growing padi. The steepest hills and also places confirmed to be the most infertile are always abandoned.

Farming is so much intense that that double or even treble cropping is done. This simply means that crops are grown on the same field during the same year. In places where only one crop of padi can be grown, the lands are always used when the dry season hits to grow other food or even cash crops not limited to tobacco or even oilseeds.

· It involves a lot of hand labor

Traditionally, so much hand labor is needed in wet pads cultivation. Besides that, plowing is conducted through the help of buffaloes, lands are raked by hand, padi is grown in accurate rows by women, and then harvesting is completed through the use of sickles and also threshing using hands. The use of farm equipment is still rare and very simple.

Some of the best tools include simple plows, cangakul, a spade-like tool, and lastly hoes. Currently, there have been many inventions that have led to the rise of machines that can be used in flooded fields and those that can plow, sow and even harvest padi.

The newly introduced machines have not been embraced by many farmers still since they are expensive, but in Japan, they are widely used and very common as they spread across Monsoon Asia. Some of these machines are also owned by firms and even cooperatives that happen to hire them as farmers. They are also in use in most parts of China.

· Use of animal and plant manures

To achieve high yields and continuous fertility, farmers drive all the types of manure that they can get hold of such as rotten vegetables, farm wastes, animal dung, fish wasters, clippings, and also human wastes.

The use of fertilizer is highly increasing in Japan, China, and India due to government campaigns and support. Some of the basic fertilizers used include potash, phosphates, and also nitrates that aid in reviving crucial plant nutrients in the soil.

· The dominance of padi and other food crops

Padi is the leading crop produced in intensive subsistence agriculture. However, since there are conflicting climates, soil, relief, and other several geographical factors. It is not more suitable to plant padi in several parts of Monsoon Asia.

However, methods are equally rated to be intensive and farming is done on a subsistence basis, are many other crops that are also grown. For instance, in areas such as Manchuria, Punjab, North Korea, North China, and also northern Japan, wheat, kaoliang (a kind of millet), barley, and soya beans are widely grown as leading food crops.

Areas such as Indian Deccan and also some parts of the Indus basin, millet or sorghum is the leading crop since there is no adequate rainfall and infertile soils. In other several parts of continental South-East Asia for example the Dry Zone of Myanmar, the interior parts of Indo-China, the Korat Plateau of Thailand, are known to have low annual precipitation that is too low for padi cultivation. This is replaced by the growing of maize, millet, groundnuts planted alongside sugarcane, oilseeds, and cotton.

In the past decades, this kind of agriculture has witnessed major improvements through mechanization, adoption of improved seeds and fertilizers, and also other forms of current systems of agro-science. Countries such as the Philippines, China, India, Korea, India, Taiwan, and also Malaysia among many others have embraced the improved agricultural systems. 

Intensive subsistence agriculture and precision agriculture 

Precision agriculture is nearly related to technology and its application to plantations in developed countries. For example, talk of GPS sensors on tractors making farmers able to measure and respond to soil differences across vast fields and also to provide accurate amounts of fertilizer and also only water where should be.

Years back, all that was perceived to be unnecessary to small-scale farmers in developing countries. Some of the questions or reasons were simply how poor farmers could buy such systems. However, there has been an upcoming body that is out to support the fact that small-scale farmers can also enjoy the results of these systems.The kind of technology that has spearheaded the introduction of precision agriculture is currently becoming easily accessible and available. For instance, unbiased cloud-based Analytics Powerhouse for agricultural data. It helps farmers find the full potential of agricultural lands and also aid in making better agronomic decisions.