subsistence farming
noun
1
: farming or a system of farming that provides all or almost all the goods required by the farm family usually without any significant surplus for sale
2
: farming or a system of farming that produces a minimum and often inadequate return to the farmer
called also subsistence agriculture
subsistence farmer noun
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web Shura to maintain her property value in a New York commuter town, and Alyona as a form of subsistence farming. 
Cressida Leyshon, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2022 The Body of Liberties did not rise organically from a society based largely in subsistence farming with English common law as its default. Marilynne Robinson, Harper’s Magazine , 20 July 2022 With the addition of modern fertilizers and farming techniques, the country went from subsistence farming to commercial farming. The Editors, National Review, 12 July 2022 Tzucubal is an Indigenous Quiche community of about 1,500 people in the mountains nearly 100 miles northwest of the capital, where most live by subsistence farming. CBS News, 30 June 2022 Cottar is against all of it, arguing that buying the land the Masai have always lived on forces them into subsistence farming elsewhere, and into a war with the animals that eat their crops and kill their cattle. Melissa Twigg, CNN, 20 May 2022 The 65-year-old has resorted to subsistence farming with his sons. Washington Post, 13 June 2022 Lukwesa says her grandparents tried their best to provide for her through subsistence farming, but by the time she was supposed to enter Grade 8, there were no resources available. Andrew Wight, Forbes, 27 Dec. 2021 Most of the 60 percent of the country employed in agriculture survives on subsistence farming. New York Times, 20 Nov. 2021 See More
Cressida Leyshon, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2022 The Body of Liberties did not rise organically from a society based largely in subsistence farming with English common law as its default. Marilynne Robinson, Harper’s Magazine , 20 July 2022 With the addition of modern fertilizers and farming techniques, the country went from subsistence farming to commercial farming. The Editors, National Review, 12 July 2022 Tzucubal is an Indigenous Quiche community of about 1,500 people in the mountains nearly 100 miles northwest of the capital, where most live by subsistence farming. CBS News, 30 June 2022 Cottar is against all of it, arguing that buying the land the Masai have always lived on forces them into subsistence farming elsewhere, and into a war with the animals that eat their crops and kill their cattle. Melissa Twigg, CNN, 20 May 2022 The 65-year-old has resorted to subsistence farming with his sons. Washington Post, 13 June 2022 Lukwesa says her grandparents tried their best to provide for her through subsistence farming, but by the time she was supposed to enter Grade 8, there were no resources available. Andrew Wight, Forbes, 27 Dec. 2021 Most of the 60 percent of the country employed in agriculture survives on subsistence farming. New York Times, 20 Nov. 2021 See More Word History
First Known Use
1892, in the meaning defined at sense 1