Talk:Subsistence agriculture/Archive 1

Archive 1

Merge with Subsistence agriculture

These two articles cover much of the same information, making them redundant. Bje2089 23:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge. yes these are the same. thanks Bje for identifying this duplication Covalent 16:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

List of countries

As of 2006, a significant number of people practice subsistence agriculture in Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Congo, Guinea, Canada, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Mexico, Yugoslavia, Polynesia, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Vietnam and many other lesser developed countries.

I think we need a source for this, because otherwise it just attracts random vandals (Canada? Yugoslavia!?). Jpatokal 16:31, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Organic?

The article talks about "organic" farming. Rather, I think, it should be "natural" farming. Since organic farming is also a technique, using natural fertilizer, compost, etc. So in most of the countries, natural farmin *like shifting cultivation* is used! Can I change?

Dennis Keller —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.207.84.198 (talk) 01:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

dubious claim

Can someone please provide some quantification for this please? I have heard of several well publicized incidents of people living on subsitence farms who are very happy and work very little. With modern farming methods (e.g. Square foot gardening) one can provide for themselves with very little work aside from initial setup, planting and harvesting... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.90.15.3 (talk) 17:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

that stuff on here is not ruling..............

This article COMPLETELY IGNORES the native Indian's (paticularly the Northern Alaskan/Canadian Eskimo tribes) cultural context to subsistence of gaming/hunting -- carribous, whaling, geese, etc.,.. These indigenous people are neither poor or wealthy but possess a culture few thousand years strong. They've come this far by pure means of subsistence.

sabura?

why all this talk about sabura? this edit is no better than the last one, I'm afraid. The page still needs to be seriously rewritten.Saritamackita 21:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

revert back

I'm afraid that although the last article is still bad, this one is worse, so I am going to revert back to the old one. Saritamackita 10:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

History?

While this article could definitely benefit from expansion on the contemporary issue, as it exists in the world today, the article also makes no mention whatsoever of subsistence agriculture throughout history, and its place in the greater concepts of "progress", "civilization", "feudalism", "agricultural revolution", etc. LordAmeth 00:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Another is that the article seems to have the opinion the subsistence farming is a bad thing and that people only do it out of necessity because they are poor. There is actually a fairly strong movement of people choosing to retract from society and farm for themselves. This should be touched on as well. 199.90.15.3

Moving back to subsistence farming... Who in their right mind would want to do that? Sources???66.195.36.133 (talk) 19:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, Who in their right mind wouldn't?! It means economic independence and being in control of your own destiny, rather than being at the mercy of an employer. I am a proud subsistence and happy subsistence farmer!

67.142.172.27 (talk) 20:06, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

bad for the environment?

I find this claim to be very dubious. While there are certainly types of subsistence agriculture that is bad for the environment, there is certainly a lot of it that is not. I'm sure conventional agriculture is a lot worse for the environment overall than subsistence agriculture. Saritamackita 21:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that genetic modification and chemical fertilization reduces environmental strain and by making crops higher yeild you reduce the land required to feed the same amount of people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.77.224.186 (talk) 09:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I too am not. In fact, conventional/commercial agriculture is arguably -vastly- better for the environment. It puts out an aggregate total more pollution, sure, but it produces vastly superior quantities of food, uses advanced methods of cultivation, genetic crops, etc. Subsistence farming, on the other hand, is using land less efficiently, puts out far more pollution per quantity of food produced, etc. Now, I don't write this to "prove you wrong," or something. Just to point out: there are DEFINITELY two sides to that issue, and this article, if it is going to go into "effects on the environment," needs to give equal time. I happen to think subsistence farming is environmentally catastrophic, hehe :). Ginsengbomb (talk) 04:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe the above comment was intended as a deeply sarcastic joke, if not I have two words: CITATION NEEDED 71.161.208.29 (talk) 09:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The main problem of this article is its reference who are at least biased, of course there are several view on this topic but it will be a good things to edit reference that shows the other point a view. for example this article in french is totaly different. globally the economic perspective is to market-oriented and some author as Tchayanov, Polanyi,Meillassoux show that subsistence agriculture are much more complicated — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.182.119.20 (talk) 08:31, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

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Some Critiques

1. Some of the article’s facts have not been cited by the author. For example, the following paragraph states multiple facts without any citations : “Subsistence agriculture also emerged independently in Mexico where it was based on maize cultivation, and the Andes where it was based on the domestication of the potato. Subsistence agriculture was the dominant mode of production in the world until recently, when market-based capitalism became widespread. Subsistence horticulture may have developed independently in South East Asia and Papua New Guinea.” This should cite where it found the information about Mexico, South East Asia and Papua New Guinea. 2. One of the citations does not work. The link to reference #4 brings you to a page that states an error. In addition, all of the sources are from things that were written more than 10 years ago and there is more current literature that could be cited for new information. 3. One thing the article could improve on is to go into the history of how societies have shifted from subsistence agriculture to industrialized farming. It could also delve deeper into why this type of farming is not the most ideal in today’s world. In addition, I think this article has an overall view of subsistence agriculture as a negative and primal way of life rather than looking at it from a neutral standpoint. Katialg (talk) 04:41, 9 November 2017 (UTC)LopesGilbertUCSD Katialg (talk) 04:41, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Agreed on point one. WTF is "subsistence horticulture"? I've never heard this term before and could find scant usage in literature, no actual definitions. 73.81.46.18 (talk) 21:31, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Although I have also never heard the term before, it is clear to me that subsistence horticulture is horticulture that occurs as part of a subsistence strategy. The book 1491 (Mann, 2005) cites strong evidence of the precolumbian Amazon Basin being fully involved in horticultural manipulation of the plant mix by organized cultures over very long periods of time, culminating in a subsistence system that produced tremendous food value for the inhabitants, and supported an indigenous population in the millions. The author did not offer a term for this form of horticulture, but did offer eyewitness accounts, including that "Michel de Montaigne admiringly claimed in 1580 that the inhabitants of the Amazon 'had ... no agriculture, no metals.' They abided, he said, 'without toil or travail in a bounteous forest that furnishes them abundantly with all they need.'" Point being that the forest was bounteous because people intentionally made it so in a labor that spanned generations. In my mind all subsistence horticulture aspires to whatever we are calling what Michel de Montaigne observed. --Paleorthid (talk) 18:23, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

U.S., Canada?

What is the percentage in the United States, and in Canada? Just because a majority of the inhabitants of a globalized capitalist country survive on work for wage, it does not mean that there are no inhabitants who live independently and autarkic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:C0:DF2E:7D00:41B:1AB4:3977:7568 (talk) 09:16, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

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