Types of farming
There exists different types of farming practices throughout the world, some major ones have been listed below
Subsistence farming
It means farming for own/family consumption. In other words, the entire production is largely
consumed by the farmers and their family and they do not have any surplus to sell in the market. In this type of farming, landholdings are small and fragmented. Cultivation techniques are primitive and simple.
Commercial farming
It involves the production of food for sale. The large wheat farms of the prairies are an
example of it.Intensive method is practiced in those countries where the supply of land is limited and density of population is high. In this type of farming emphasis is on greatest possible output per hectare of land. Countries like China, Japan, India, Britain, Holland, Germany and Belgium practice this method of agriculture.
Extensive method
It is practiced in sparsely populated area – where per man land area is higher and where there
is scope for bringing additional land under cultivation e.g. USA, Russia, Australia, Argentina and Brazil.
Shifting cultivation
It is another form of extensive agriculture. Planting crops in a region until fertility diminishes and then moving to a fresh area to plant means there must be lots of land available.
Jhumming / Shifting cultivation is widely practiced in hilly regions of India especially Assam.
Nomadic herding
It is similar to shifting agriculture in that it involves moving from place to place with an extensive use of land but differs in that nomadic herding involves the raising of cattle, sheep or other herding animals.
Agribusiness
Agribusiness is a form of commercial farming. It is run by large corporations that are self sufficient providing their own inputs and processing their own outputs.
Plantation Farming
It is an estate where a single cash crop is grown for sale. This type of agriculture involves
growing and processing of a single cash crop purely meant for sale. Tea, coffee, rubber, banana and spices are all examples of plantation crops.
Mixed Farming
is a situation in which both raising crops and rearing animals are carried on simultaneously. Here farmers engaged in mixed farming are economically better off than others.
Peri-urban agriculture
It is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around (peri-urban), a village, town or city.
Urban agriculture
It contributes to food security and food safety in two ways:
1.it increases the amount of food available to people living in cities second
2.It allows fresh vegetables and fruits and meat products to be made available to urban consumers.
Organic agriculture
It is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies
on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects.
Precision agriculture
It uses ICT (Information and Communication Technology) to cover the three aspects of production namely for data collection of information input through options as Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite data, grid soil sampling, yield monitoring, remote sensing, etc; for data analysis or processing through Geographic Information System (GIS) and decision technologies as process models, artificial intelligence systems, and expert systems; and for application of information by farmers