Traditional farming system is technically and technologically primitive. The land is farmed to provide sustenance; everything that is produced is needed for survival (subsistence).
One fifth of the world farms in this manner, constituting the largest part of world agriculture. Today it is rare for people to live from hunting and fruit gathering. There are also few people whose occupation is nomadic agriculture and animal husbandry.
Characteristics of traditional agriculture:
- Extensive farming with simple tools and crops
- Basic instruments: axe, hoe, stick.
- Methods: burn the plants in a field and sow in the ashes.
- Cattle raisin helps to create fallow land.
- In the absence of private property, public or communal land predominates.
- There is no surplus production.
The number of self-sufficient, family farms is diminishing in the developed countries, but this is not the case in developing countries in Africa and Asia. Nomadic herders are still found in the south of the Sahara Desert in Africa, and across Afghanistan and Lapland. Sheep herding is an important occupation in some areas, such as Mongolia, as a complement to agriculture.
Another form of traditional farming is the intensive farmed rice paddy, of great importance in Southeast Asia. Rice is the most widely planted cereal. Most species require high soil humidity during growth. Rice is cultivated in Asia, South America, Africa, the United States, southern Europe and elsewhere.