Types of Farming: Subsistence, Commercial, Arable, and Pastoral

Types of farming are classified by purpose, by what is produced and by how intensively the land is used: subsistence farming produces food mainly for the farmer’s family, commercial farming produces mainly for sale, arable farming grows crops, and pastoral farming raises animals. In brief: a farm can be described by combining these labels, for example “commercial arable” (a large wheat farm), “intensive subsistence” (a small rice farm in Asia) or “nomadic pastoral” (herders moving with their animals). Intensive farming uses a lot of labor or capital per hectare, while extensive farming uses little per hectare over a large area.

The type of farm found in a place depends on climate, soil, markets, technology and culture. This guide explains the main categories, describes examples of each, compares them in a table, works through a calculation of intensity and output, outlines the history and corrects common mistakes.

How is farming classified?

Geographers use three main questions. Why is the farm producing? To feed the family (subsistence) or to sell (commercial). What does it produce? Crops (arable), animals (pastoral) or both (mixed). How intensive is it? Intensive farms put in large amounts of labor or capital per hectare and get high yields from small areas, while extensive farms use large areas with low inputs per hectare. A single farm is described by all three, such as a “commercial, extensive, pastoral” sheep station in Australia.

What is subsistence farming?

In subsistence farming, most of the output is consumed by the farm household, with little or nothing left to sell. There are several forms.

• Intensive subsistence: small plots farmed very intensively with much hand labor, as with wet rice cultivation in monsoon Asia (India, China, Bangladesh, Vietnam). Yields per hectare are high, and several crops a year may be possible with irrigation.
• Shifting cultivation (slash-and-burn): farmers clear a patch of forest, burn the vegetation to release nutrients, grow crops for a few years and then move on when the soil is exhausted, leaving the plot to regrow. It is found in parts of the Amazon basin, Central Africa and Southeast Asia, and works sustainably only at low population densities with long fallow periods.
• Nomadic pastoralism: herders move with cattle, goats, sheep, camels or yaks to find pasture and water, as in the Sahel, Mongolia and Central Asia. Animals provide milk, meat, hides and transport.

What is commercial farming?

Commercial farming is run as a business, producing for sale in local, national or global markets. It generally uses machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, high-yielding varieties and capital. Examples are the large grain farms of the North American prairies, ranches in Argentina and Australia, dairy farms in Europe and New Zealand, and plantations that grow a single cash crop such as tea, coffee, rubber, sugar cane, bananas or palm oil, usually in tropical areas, often for export. Market gardening (horticulture) grows vegetables, fruit and flowers intensively near cities or under glass, for example in the Netherlands and Spain. Commercial farms vary widely in size, from family farms to large agribusinesses.

What are arable, pastoral and mixed farming?

Arable farming grows crops such as wheat, barley, maize, rice, potatoes and vegetables. It is common in areas with fertile soil, suitable climate and flat land. Pastoral farming raises animals for meat, milk, eggs or wool, and is found where the land is too steep, wet or dry for crops, or where grass grows well, as in uplands, dry grasslands and wet pastures. Mixed farming combines the two, for example growing crops and feeding the by-products to animals, whose manure fertilizes the fields. This reduces risk because the farmer is not dependent on a single product, and it is common in parts of Europe and on small farms in developing countries.

Types of farming compared

Worked example: intensity and output

1. Output per hectare: a rice farm of 1.5 hectares produces 9 tonnes of rice per year with two harvests. The yield is 9 ÷ 1.5 = 6 tonnes per hectare per year.
2. Labor intensity: if 4 family members work the farm, there are 4 ÷ 1.5 = 2.7 workers per hectare. A prairie wheat farm with 2 workers on 400 hectares has 2 ÷ 400 = 0.005 workers per hectare, which is about 530 times less (2.67 ÷ 0.005 = 533).
3. Output per worker: the rice farm produces 9 ÷ 4 = 2.25 tonnes per worker. If the wheat farm produces 4 tonnes per hectare, its output is 400 × 4 = 1,600 tonnes, or 1,600 ÷ 2 = 800 tonnes per worker. This shows that commercial farming has a much higher output per worker but not per hectare.
4. Feeding the family: a family of 6 needs about 0.25 tonnes of cereal per person a year, or 6 × 0.25 = 1.5 tonnes. With a harvest of 9 tonnes, they have 9 − 1.5 = 7.5 tonnes to sell or store, so the farm is not purely subsistence.
5. Shifting cultivation: if each plot is cultivated for 3 years and needs 15 years of fallow, one family needs 18 ÷ 3 = 6 plots in the cycle. With 2 hectares per plot, they use 6 × 2 = 12 hectares of land, of which only 2 hectares are in use at a time.

How have farming types changed?

Farming began around 10,000 years ago in places such as the Fertile Crescent and China, and early farmers were mostly subsistence farmers. The Agricultural Revolution in 18th-century Britain, with crop rotations, selective breeding and enclosure of land, increased output and freed labor for industry. In the 19th century, railways, refrigerated ships and steam power allowed commercial farms in the Americas and Australia to supply distant markets. The Green Revolution of the 1960s spread high-yielding varieties and fertilizers to developing countries, and in the 20th and 21st centuries, the share of people working in agriculture fell sharply in most countries. Subsistence farming remains important in many low-income regions.

Which mistakes are common?

Mistake 1: Treating subsistence farming as unproductive

Intensive subsistence rice farming can have very high yields per hectare. What is low is output per worker.

Mistake 2: Equating commercial with large-scale only

Small farms can be commercial if they mainly produce for sale, and many large farms also keep part of the output for themselves.

Mistake 3: Confusing arable with intensive

Arable describes crops. Intensive describes the amount of input per hectare. A pastoral farm can be intensive, like a dairy farm.

Mistake 4: Assuming that shifting cultivation is always destructive

With low population density and long fallow, it can be sustainable. Problems arise when fallow periods are shortened or land is scarce.