millions of farm families in Africa, Asia, and Latin America produce barely enough food to subsist on, that is, to meet their own needs. Subsistence farming depends heavily on human labor and requires only the most basic farm tools. Although subsistence farmers produce goods chiefly for themselves, they may also raise small amount for sale. This type of farming is often called semi-subsistence agriculture.
Most subsistence farmers have one or more small plots of land, which they farm year after year. Such farms are common in the rice-growing regions of southern Asia and in parts of Africa and Latin America.
In some countries, many subsistence farmers do not have permanent farms. Instead, they live in bands that move from place to place within a large area fixed by custom. At each stop, the members of the community establish temporary farms. The number of such communities has declined since the middle of the 20 th century. But large communities still exist in certain parts of the world. They practice shifting cultivation and nomadic herding.