WordNet
n. farming that provides for the basic needs of the farmer without surpluses for marketing
Usage examples of "subsistence farming".
Cities needed to be supplied from the country, and cities attracted those people disillusioned with subsistence farming, simply down and out, or those looking for the end of the rainbow, and if a sufficient number came in and a poor underclass developed, there was potential for political ferment, violence, and challenges to the system.
The human civilization on this planet has slid backward to a subsistence farming culture.
He would not see their dreams founder, the cities they now owned die, the world return to the poverty of subsistence farming without tractors or fertilizer or pesticides.
But subsistence farming seems to encourage large families, so the population of the world has more than doubled since the Ration War.
These tend to be agrarian societies, with direct subsistence farming and hunting by spear and arrow.
The trickle of food that the Patriarch and Emperor allowed the urban masses to prevent rioting was often better than they had known when they had supported themselves through subsistence farming.
These tend to be agrarian societies, with direct subsistence farming and huntÂ.
Rainfall dropped to less than thirty inches a year, sufficient for grass to support herds of antelope and buffalo but not enough for anything except subsistence farming.
On the other handwithout a bunch of dopers lounging around, he had a lot fewer mouths to feed, and by then he wasn't bad at subsistence farming.