How to Use subsistence farming in a Sentence

subsistence farming

noun
  • Some villagers are employed at his camp, but most rely on subsistence farming.
    — Paul Steyn, National Geographic, 2 May 2019
  • The 65-year-old has resorted to subsistence farming with his sons.
    — Washington Post, 13 June 2022
  • 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
  • Clavero is a village reliant mainly on subsistence farming and fishing.
    — Arati Menon, Condé Nast Traveler, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Many are dependent on subsistence farming that requires long hours of hard outdoor labor.
    — National Geographic, 2 Aug. 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Its economy, long based on subsistence farming and fishing, now includes a modest tourism industry.
    — Freda Moon, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2020
  • 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
  • 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
  • Resources were limited and scarce, and most families practiced subsistence farming in near solitude.
    — Lauren Oster, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 Dec. 2022
  • Most of the 60 percent of the country employed in agriculture survives on subsistence farming.
    — New York Times, 20 Nov. 2021
  • As a poor 8-year-old boy in eastern Uttar Pradesh, he was destined to a miserable life of subsistence farming — or worse.
    — Ron Charles, Washington Post, 29 Dec. 2022
  • 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
  • As with many subsistence farming communities, Tsimane families tend to be large.
    — Herman Pontzer, Scientific American, 12 Dec. 2022
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • In addition to subsistence farming, timber was the largest industry in early Saline County.
    — Arkansas Online, 4 Apr. 2026
  • 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
  • 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 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
  • 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
  • Much of the rural population relies on subsistence farming in a high-mountain environment that is vulnerable to climate change.
    — Sandee Lamotte, CNN, 13 Sep. 2019
  • 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
  • While most of the population work in agriculture, with much of its rural population relying on subsistence farming, development has grown.
    — Helen Regan, CNN, 28 July 2021
  • 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
  • Centuries on, families living just inside mita areas consume 25% less than those just outside them, are less educated and rely more on subsistence farming.
    — The Economist, 30 Apr. 2020

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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