Subsistence farming and rural food security: A review

Subsistence farming is a set of techniques used by the poor rural farmers to meet their food and nutritional requirements. Through increasing revenues and food supplies, subsistence farming provides poor households with a foundation for improving their household food security and ultimately producing extra income for other household needs. In the past, rural households were largely self-sufficient in producing their own food. However, recent research indicates a remarkable increase in market purchases made by both urban and rural households. In addition to enhancing livelihoods and assisting to reduce the high food prices, the subsistence farming can play a significant role for lowering food prices both in rural and urban areas. This paper helps us to understand the importance of subsistence farming that how it is useful to rural farmer for getting food and income for other needs. To meet their food needs, many smallholders rely mainly on rainfed, low-input subsistence farming. However, the majority of rural households cannot consistently produce enough food through subsistence farming to prevent starvation. In order to guarantee long-term food security, subsistence agriculture production can be increased by motivating the farmer for better production by using sustainable and better inputs. This will be possible only when farmer be facilitating by providing low price organic and inorganic fertilizer and by lowering transport and transaction cost. This study will be helpful for policymakers, development experts, and anyone interested in how nations facing comparable difficulties to rural economic growth. © 2018 The Author(s)