Part-Time Farming & Agricultural Practices: A Deep Dive
Part-Time Farming
Part-time farming refers to a method of farming that, thanks to mechanization and the introduction of modern cultivation techniques, combines farming with other paid work in other productive sectors. It is an essential factor in raising the per capita income in many rural areas.
Agriculture Market
This is typical of developed countries and depends on the profit the producer can get in the market. It has overcome the cycle of self-sufficiency and aims to stimulate a high percentage of the population not involved in agricultural production. It is characterized by high specialization, optimization of production costs, the massive use of technical advances (both mechanical and biological), and finally, price volatility.
Subsistence Agriculture
This is a type of agriculture whose production is largely for home consumption and is characterized by low productivity. Its basic food production is for the family or the peasant community. It is common in the poorest countries.
Extensive Agriculture
This is a cultivation system based on the occupation of large areas of land. It is practiced in areas where arable land availability is high and labor is scarce. Yields per hectare are small.
Intensive Agriculture
This is a cultivation system used in highly populated areas where land is scarce and expensive. Its objective is to obtain higher yields per hectare, which requires high capital and labor.
Sharecropping
This is a special case of land lease, currently in decline. The owners provide at least a portion of the means of production (machinery, seeds, fertilizers, etc.) and rent the land to the peasants in exchange for a share of the crop agreed upon in advance.
Reparceling
This consists of a set of operations for the redistribution of plots in a rural area, grouping them into regular, larger, and more accessible units.
Pasture
These are lands protected from free grazing. They can also be large domain properties or shrubby tree cover devoted to ranching and/or forestry.
Extensive Livestock
This is a livestock system that gets poor yields per hectare and per head of livestock, even when it involves few means of production. It aims to obtain low-cost production using grass, stubble, and pastures, and scarce labor. In drier areas, the livestock is sold off before the dry season. In Spain, sheep and goats are raised extensively in the two sub-plateaus and Andalusia.
Intensive Livestock
This is the type of farming that aims to produce as many cattle (high performance) as possible in the smallest space possible. The choice of breeds, application of modern techniques, the study of market demand, and utilization of manpower required are its most important features.
Smallholding
A small farm dedicated to agriculture or livestock production with very low returns because of its small size, hindering mechanization or the practice of fallowing.
Monoculture
A cropping system that devotes all plots on a farm and all farms in a region to a single crop.
EU Agricultural Policy (PAC)
The EU agricultural policy sets guidelines for member countries, which must adjust or change their structures to adapt to such directives. Its objectives are:
- Increasing agricultural productivity
- Ensuring a fair and dignified standard of living for the farming population
- Stabilization of markets
- Security in establishments
- Ensuring supply to consumers at reasonable prices
- Environmental protection
- Development of backward areas
Irrigation
Agricultural engineering based on the artificial input of water to the fields. It is practiced in most areas where rainfall is low or irregular, such as the Mediterranean area.
Forest Repopulation
Planting trees where none grew, or where they disappeared, trying to mitigate the catastrophic effects of deforestation on the soil.