State any three characteristics of intensive subsistence farming.
Answers
Answer:
The main characteristics of the intensive subsistence agriculture are as follows:
(i) Very small holdings:
(ii) Farming is very intensive:
(iii) Much hand labour is entailed:
(iv) Use of animal and plant manures:
(v) Dominance of padi and other food crops:.......................
Answer:
Three characteristics of the intensive subsistence agriculture are as follows:
(i) Very small holdings:
Farms have been subdivided through many generations so they have become extremely small and often uneconomic to run.
Individual peasants grow crops mainly to support their own families, though there is some surplus for sale in some areas.
(ii) Farming is very intensive:
In Monsoon Asia, the peasants are so ‘land hungry’ that every bit of tillable land is utilised for agriculture. The fields are separated only by narrow, handmade ridges and footpaths by which the farmers move around their farms. These are kept very narrow to save space. Additional land is made available for cultivation by draining swampy areas, irrigating drier areas and terracing hill slopes to produce flat areas that are suitable for padi cultivation. Only the steepest hills and the most infertile areas, irrigating drier areas and terracing hill slopes to produce flat areas that are suitable for paddy cultivation. Only the steepest hills and the most infertile areas are left uncultivated.
(iii) Much hand labour is entailed:
Traditionally, much hand labour is required in wet padi cultivation. Ploughing is done with the aid of buffaloes, the fields are raked by hand, the padi is planted painstakingly in precise rows by the women, harvesting is done with sickles and threshing is done by hand. Farm implements are often still very simple.
The basic tools are simple ploughs, the cangkul, a kind of spade, and hoes. Nowadays machinery has been developed which is capable of working in the flooded fields and separate machines can plough, plant and harvest the padi.