How to Use subsistence farming in a Sentence

subsistence farming

noun
  • Now, the Ogiek have been forced to practice subsistence farming, by growing maize and beans as well as other crops.
    Geoffrey Kamadi, The Christian Science Monitor, 14 Oct. 2020
  • The 65-year-old has resorted to subsistence farming with his sons.
    Washington Post, 13 June 2022
  • If there’s something remote about the work of subsistence farming and the friction of a small village, there’s also something hypnotic about the rhythms of such a life.
    Ron Charles, Washington Post, 26 Nov. 2019
  • Some villagers are employed at his camp, but most rely on subsistence farming.
    Paul Steyn, National Geographic, 2 May 2019
  • Most of the 60 percent of the country employed in agriculture survives on subsistence farming.
    New York Times, 20 Nov. 2021
  • About two-thirds of the country’s 2.2 million people live in rural villages, and many survive off subsistence farming.
    Loni Prinsloo and Janice Kew/ Bloomberg, Time, 19 Dec. 2019
  • Agrarian peasants, most of whom lived on subsistence farming, each had eight days—spread out over the year to avoid competition—to sell their excess wares.
    Tara Isabella Burton, WSJ, 20 June 2019
  • 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
  • But moving beyond mere subsistence farming required an openness to these new markets and to the world of commerce in general.
    Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, Smithsonian, 12 Jan. 2018
  • Togo, which lies between Ghana and Benin, is one of the world’s poorest countries, with many people surviving on subsistence farming.
    Raluca Besliu, New York Times, 4 Nov. 2017
  • In Zabarmari, villagers struggle to eke out a living through subsistence farming and fishing.
    Ismail Alfa and Ruth MacLean New York Times, Star Tribune, 10 Dec. 2020
  • Caal Maquin’s family is among the poorest in a village of very poor indigenous Guatemalans, where subsistence farming is getting harder as forests are razed for palm oil.
    Dara Lind, Vox, 18 Dec. 2018
  • People scrape by on subsistence farming, jobs in small factories, welfare checks and cash flow from retirees who are moving onto the cheap, vista-blissful land.
    New York Times, 30 Apr. 2021
  • 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
  • Many are dependent on subsistence farming that requires long hours of hard outdoor labor.
    National Geographic, 2 Aug. 2017
  • 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
  • Now, in these times when the weather is so much more variable and even extreme, subsistence farming isn’t providing enough to feed the family and chronic malnutrition is a grave risk for small children.
    Deepa Fernandes, USA TODAY, 24 Jan. 2018
  • Nor is air-conditioning an option for most people in the poorer, high-risk countries where subsistence farming remains common.
    Nina Lakhani, Wired, 16 May 2020
  • In African countries, female farmers are trained to move beyond subsistence farming to production for local markets.
    Howard Lafranchi, The Christian Science Monitor, 8 Mar. 2021
  • Its economy, long based on subsistence farming and fishing, now includes a modest tourism industry.
    Freda Moon, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2020
  • Resources were limited and scarce, and most families practiced subsistence farming in near solitude.
    Lauren Oster, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 Dec. 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
  • For the people of La Toma and environs, gold mining has historically been a key source of income, supplementing subsistence farming.
    Patrick J. McDonnellforeign Correspondent, Los Angeles Times, 25 Sep. 2022
  • The majority of the region's inhabitants are Miskito, who live through subsistence farming or fishing, Jarquin said.
    The Associated Press, NOLA.com, 4 Nov. 2020
  • The majority of the region’s inhabitants are Miskito, who live through subsistence farming or fishing, Jarquin said.
    Fox News, 3 Nov. 2020
  • The few families that live in the valley subsist mostly on shepherding and subsistence farming, the same livelihoods that have supported people on these productive alpine and subalpine pastures for centuries.
    Borja Carsi, Slate Magazine, 18 Dec. 2017
  • But hundreds of other residents, mostly lower-caste laborers who worked the land for subsistence farming, were skeptical.
    Anant Gupta, Washington Post, 9 Dec. 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
  • The vast majority of residents live extremely close to the bone, patching together a living by herding livestock and subsistence farming crops of buckwheat, potatoes, and barley.
    Ben Ayers, Outside Online, 27 July 2022
  • Many people have moved on from subsistence farming, taking up alternatives like beekeeping and growing profitable crops like dragon fruit and strawberries.
    Bhadra Sharma, New York Times, 11 Nov. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'subsistence farming.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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