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Subsistence agriculture

About: Subsistence agriculture is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 8069 publications have been published within this topic receiving 156876 citations. The topic is also known as: subsistence farming.


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Michael R. Dove1
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that much of this debate deals not with the empirical facts of swidden agriculture, however, but rather with widely-accepted myths, and that this explains the widespread failures of developmental schemes involving swidden agriculturalists.
Abstract: Swidden agriculture is today the focus of a great deal of debate in the context of agroforestry development in humid, tropical countries. This paper argues that much of this debate deals not with the empirical facts of swidden agriculture, however, but rather with widely-accepted myths, and that this explains the widespread failures of developmental schemes involving swidden agriculturalists. The paper examines three of these myths in some detail.One myth is that swidden agriculturalists own their land communally (or not at all), work it communally, and consume its yields communally. The truth is that their land (including land under secondary forest fallow) is typically owned by individual households, it is worked by individual household labor forces and/or by reciprocal but not communal work groups, and its yields are owned and consumed privately and individually by each household. A second myth is that swidden cultivation of forested land is destructive and wasteful, and in the worst cases results in barren, useless grassland successions. The truth is that swidden cultivation is a productive use of the forests, indeed more productive than commercial logging in terms of the size of the population supported, and forest-grassland successions are typically a function not of rapaciousness but of increasing population/land pressure and agricultural intensification- the grasses, including Imperata cylindrica, having value both as a fallow period soil-rebuilder and as cattle fodder. A third myth is that swidden agriculturalists have a totally subsistence economy, completely cut off from the rest of the world. The truth is that swidden agriculturalists, in addition to planting their subsistence food crops, typically plant market-oriented cash crops as well, and as a result they are actually more integrated into the world economy than many of the practitioners of more intensive forms of agriculture.In the conclusion to the paper, in a brief attempt to explain the genesis of these several myths, it is noted that they have generally facilitated the extension of external administration and exploitation into the territories of the swidden agriculturalists, and hence can perhaps best be explained as a reflection of the political economy of the greater societies in which they dwell.

246 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is concluded that varietal mixtures are presently a viable strategy for sustainable productivity in subsistence agriculture, have potential for improvement without sacrifice of diversity, are an important resource for future global food production and may have an expanding role in modern agriculture in situations where qualitative uniformity is not the guiding priority.
Abstract: Summary Remarkable parallels link the development of varietal mixtures across subsistence farming systems. Mixtures are grown and persist because they prolong harvest and income flow and provide diversity of diet. From our review of research on agronomic and disease aspects of mixtures in modern agriculture, it is also clear that improved stability and decreased disease severity are common features of mixtures relative to their components in monoculture. Such advantages are of value to both modern and subsistence agriculture. However, in the majority of cases, the yield advantage of mixtures is small. Overall, we conclude that varietal mixtures are presently a viable strategy for sustainable productivity in subsistence agriculture, have potential for improvement without sacrifice of diversity, are an important resource for future global food production and may have an expanding role in modern agriculture in situations where qualitative uniformity is not the guiding priority.

245 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the adoption decisions of subsistence multicrop producers regarding improved cassava variety (TMS 30572) in the humid tropical rainforest ecology of Southwestern Nigeria were analyzed within a qualitative choice framework.

243 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article reviewed studies about how market economies affect the subsistence, health, nutritional status, social capital, and traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous peoples and their use of renewable natural resources and found that market exposure produces mixed effects on well-being and conservation.
Abstract: Assessing the effects of markets on the well-being of indigenous peoples and their conservation of natural resources matters to identify public policies to improve well-being and enhance conservation and to test hypotheses about sociocultural change. We review studies about how market economies affect the subsistence, health, nutritional status, social capital, and traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous peoples and their use of renewable natural resources. Market exposure produces mixed effects on well-being and conservation. Unclear effects arise from the small sample size of observations; reliance on cross-sectional data or short panels; lack of agreement on the measure of key variables, such as integration to the market or folk knowledge, or whether to rely on perceived or objective indicators of health; and endogeneity biases. Rigorous empirical studies linking market economies with the well-being of indigenous peoples or their use of renewable natural resources have yet to take off.

242 citations

Book
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, the origins of agriculture in the Levant and the diffusion of the Neolithic process are discussed, and a geographical and chronological framework for the first stages of diffusion is presented.
Abstract: List of plates List of figures Translator's note Foreword Preface Chronological table Introduction Part I. The Origins of Agriculture: 1. Natural environment and human cultures on the eve of the Neolithic 2. The first pre-agricultural villages: the Natufian 3. The Revolution in symbols and the origins of Neolithic religion 4. The first farmers: the socio-cultural context 5. The first farmers: strategies of subsistence 6. Agriculture, population, society: an assessment 7. The Neolithic Revolution: a transformation of the mind Part II. The Beginnings of Neolithic Diffusion: 8. A geographical and chronological framework for the first stages of diffusion 9. The birth of a culture in the northern Levant and the neolithisation of Anatolia 10. Diffusion into the central and southern Levant 11. The evidence of symbolism in the southern Levant 12. The dynamics of a dominant culture Part III. The Great Exodus: 13. The problem of diffusion in the Neolithic 14. The completion of the neolithic process in the 'Levantine nucleus' 15. The arrival of farmers on the Mediterranean littoral and in Cyprus 16. The sedentary peoples push east: the eastern Jezirah and the Syrian desert 17. Pastoral nomadism 18. Hypotheses for the spread of the Neolithic Conclusion Postscript Notes Bibliography Index.

241 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023534
20221,101
2021279
2020268
2019297
2018303