Introduction to Agriculture
Senior 1 · Agriculture
Introduction to Agriculture
Lesson 3 of 4
22 min
Let's begin
Mutesi's family in Nyaruguru grows sweet potatoes, beans, maize and bananas on half a hectare, keeps one cow in a shed and sells a little surplus at the market. Forty kilometres away, a company farm grows only one crop for export, on land ploughed by tractor.
Both are farms, but they are organised in very different ways. The way a farm is organised is called its farming system, and each system has advantages and disadvantages.
A farming system is the way a farm is organised: what it produces (crops, livestock or both), who the produce is for (the family or the market), and how much labour, money and other inputs are used on each unit of land. Farming systems can be grouped by purpose, by enterprise and by intensity.
Subsistence farming is farming mainly to feed the farmer's own family, with little or nothing left to sell. Commercial farming is farming mainly to sell the produce for profit. Many Rwandan smallholders are in between: they feed the family first and sell a surplus (semi-commercial farming).
| Subsistence farming | Commercial farming | |
|---|---|---|
| Main aim | Feed the family | Profit from sales |
| Farm size | Small | Small to very large |
| Crops | Many different crops, often mixed together | Few crops, often one (specialisation) |
| Inputs | Family labour, hand tools, own seed, little fertiliser | Hired labour, machines, improved seed, fertilisers, pesticides |
| Advantages | Cheap to start; family food supply is secure; many crops spread the risk of failure | High income; earns foreign exchange; employs workers; uses machines and skills efficiently |
| Disadvantages | Low yields; little income to buy inputs or pay school fees; slow to adopt new methods | Needs much capital; losses when market prices fall; growing one crop builds up its pests and drains the same nutrients |
Mixed farming is the most common system on Rwanda's hills. The links between crops and animals are what make it work:
| Advantages of mixed farming | Disadvantages of mixed farming |
|---|---|
| Manure keeps the soil fertile at low cost | Needs more capital to start (animals, shed) |
| Residues that would be wasted become feed | Needs more labour and more kinds of skill |
| Income from several products spreads risk | Animals may damage crops if poorly controlled |
| Better family diet (milk, eggs, vegetables) | Animal diseases and parasites must be managed |
| Work and income are spread across the year | Land must be shared between food and fodder |
Intensive farming uses a lot of labour, money and inputs on a small area to get high output per hectare. Extensive farming uses few inputs over a large area, so output per hectare is low. Where land is scarce, as in Rwanda, farming must become more intensive. Zero grazing is an intensive livestock system: the cow stays in a shed and fodder is cut and carried to it, instead of the cow roaming over pasture.
Question: Farm A is 0.5 ha and keeps 2 zero-grazed cows. Farm B is a 30 ha grazing farm with 24 cows. (a) Find the stocking rate (number of animals per hectare) of each farm. (b) Which is more intensive?
(a) Stocking rate = number of animals ÷ area.
Farm A: 2 ÷ 0.5 = 4 cows per ha.
Farm B: 24 ÷ 30 = 0.8 cows per ha.
(b) Farm A keeps five times as many cows on each hectare (4 ÷ 0.8 = 5), so it is far more intensive. It can only do this because fodder is grown, cut and carried to the shed, and the cows' manure is returned to the land.
Tip
Memory hook: mixed farming is a two-way street: "the cow feeds the field, the field feeds the cow."
Exam technique: when asked for advantages AND disadvantages, set them out as two separate lists and make each point a full reason. Never give the same idea twice in different words.
Define mixed farming.
Solution: Mixed farming is the growing of crops and keeping of livestock on the same farm, with each enterprise supporting the other (manure for crops, residues for animals).
Give two advantages and two disadvantages of subsistence farming.
Solution: Advantages: it is cheap to start; the family's food supply is secure; growing many crops spreads the risk. Disadvantages: yields are low; there is little income to buy inputs; farmers are slow to adopt new methods.
Explain why a farmer who grows only one crop for sale faces more risk than a subsistence farmer.
Solution: If the price of that crop falls or a pest destroys it, the whole income is lost, and growing it year after year builds up its pests and diseases. The subsistence farmer's many crops rarely all fail at once.
A farmer keeps 3 cows on 0.25 ha by zero grazing. What is the stocking rate?
Solution: 3 ÷ 0.25 = 12 cows per ha. (Such a high rate is possible only if most of the fodder is bought or brought from elsewhere.)
Why is intensive farming more suitable than extensive farming in Rwanda?
Solution: Rwanda has little land for its large, dense population and most farms are small, so output must be raised by getting more from each hectare (more labour, manure, improved seed) rather than by farming more land.
Summary
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
