Subsistence versus Commercial Agriculture

Agricultural systems worldwide fall along a spectrum from subsistence farming, in which a household grows food primarily for its own consumption with little surplus sold, to fully commercial agriculture, in which output is grown specifically for sale in domestic or international markets. The Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development have estimated, in joint reporting around 2014, that the world contains more than 500 million smallholder farms, most working plots of two hectares or less, and that these smallholdings collectively produce a substantial share of the food consumed in the developing world, particularly across Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Subsistence agriculture is typically labor-intensive rather than capital-intensive, relies heavily on household and community labor rather than hired workers or machinery, and often integrates crop cultivation with small-scale livestock keeping to spread risk against a single crop's failure.