Types of farming - Concepts - Chapter 4 Class 10 Geography - Agriculture - Geography

Depending on the characteristics of the physical environment , technical advancements , and sociocultural customs , cultivation techniques have varied substantially over the years.

The types of farming vary from subsistence to commercial farming.

Primitive Subsistence Farming

• Primitive Subsistence Farming is the traditional way of farming .
• In this type of farming, farmers produce crops for their own consumption .
• Practiced on small patches of the land with the help of traditional tools.
• Traditional tools   -  hoe, dao, digging sticks, and sickle.
• This style of farming is relian t on the monsoon, soil fertility, and environmental factors.
• Known as shifting cultivation or slash and burn cultivation .
• To feed their families, farmers clear a plot of land and grow crops.
• When the soil fertility decline , the farmers shift and clear a fresh patch of land
• This helps to restore soil fertility.
• Land productivity is low as the farmer doesn't use modern inputs.
• Different regions of the country have different names for slash and burn cultivation .

Intensive Subsistence Farming

• Intensive Subsistence farming is practiced in the areas of high population pressure on land .
• It is a Labour intensive farming.
• High amounts of biochemical inputs and irrigation are used to increase yield .
• Right of inheritance results in the split of land among succeeding generations and has made land-holding size uneconomical .
• Agriculture land is under a great deal of pressure. 

Commercial Farming

• This type of farming uses modern inputs , such as high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, c hemical fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides.
• This will foster crop productivity .
• Plantation is also a type of commercial farming.

 Plantation 

• In this kind of farming a single crop is cultivated over a large region  
• With the aid of migrant laborers , plantations use capital-intensive inputs to cover enormous areas of land.
• A well-developed network of transportation and communication linking the plantation lands , processing companies, and marketplaces plays a crucial role in the growth of plantations 
• Examples: Tea in Assam and Coffee in Karnataka