his farming system is being used by many farmers in India as most of them are small scale farmers who cannot able to afford high yielding seeds and required crop fertilizers. These farmers also hold a small chunk of lands and will not have any irrigation and electricity facilities. The whole family works in the field for the production of food. The entire crop is kept for their family consumption. In case, if they can able to afford for irrigation and electricity, cash crops like cotton, sugarcane, and oilseeds are cultivated by these farmers. In this farming system, farmers can avail either dryland farming or wetland farming depending on rainfall or irrigation facilities. In areas where low annual rainfall is recorded, crops like Maize, Bajra, Jowar, and any pulse/gram crops are grown. These crops are grown once a year. In the case of wetland farming where sufficient irrigation facilities are available, farmers usually grow crops twice a year. These seasons are termed as Kharif (from July to October) and Rabi (from October to March). In wetland farming, farmers mostly cultivate rice, vegetables and sugarcane crops etc.

Main features of Subsistence farming include:

  • The entire family depends on the cultivation of land.
  • Most of the farming is done manually without any help of tools.
  • Traditional farming methods are followed in growing crops.
  • Expect small extent lands.
  • The crop yield expected is low.
  • The entire crop is consumed by farmer family and commercial crop selling is not possible.