subsistence agriculture, is a mode of agriculture in which a plot of land produces only enough food to feed the family or small community working it. All produce grown is intended for consumption purposes as opposed to market sale or trade. Historically and currently a difficult way of life, subsistence farming is considered by many a backward lifestyle that should be transformed into industrialized communities and commercial farming throughout the world in order to overcome problems of poverty and famine. The numerous obstacles that have prevented this to date suggest that a complex array of factors, not only technological but also economic, political, educational, and social, are involved. An alternative perspective, primarily from the feminist voice, maintains that the subsistence lifestyle holds the key to sustainability as human relationships and harmony with the environment have priority over material measures of wealth. Although the poverty suffered by many of those who have never developed beyond subsistence levels of production in farming is something that needs to be overcome, it does appear that the ideas inherent in much of subsistence farming—cooperation, local, ecologically appropriate—are positive attributes that must be preserved in our efforts to improve the lives of all people throughout the world.
