The concept of commercial agriculture implies that crops and livestock are raised to be sold on the market for profit. Since commercial agriculture aims to produce goods such as meat or grains that could be sold, the farmers put a lot of effort into maximizing productivity. This includes the application of fertilizers and pesticides, modern technologies, machinery, and irrigation methods. Commercial agriculture mainly produces crops and cattle that are in high demand because this means that they could be exported abroad.
Subsistence agriculture means that farmers grow crops and livestock, not for export or massive sales, but to meet their families needs. Therefore, subsistence agriculture takes place in smallholdings, not in the largescale fields and pastures. In subsistence agriculture, crops are raised, not for sale; it releases farmers from the necessity to use the chemical industry’s latest development to increase the output of a farm. Another difference between subsistence and commercial agriculture is that the latter requires considerable capital investments, while the former needs high labor. Finally, it should be noted that subsistence agriculture strongly depends on simple irrigation methods because, for the farmers, it is too expensive and unreasonable to employ specialized installations for watering.
Commercial agriculture affects the physical geography where it takes place. For example, it might lead to the soil’s loss of fertility and its erosion and salinization, deforestation, and pollution of the groundwaters with pesticides. An evident illustration of this process could be found in the article of Sigurmundsson et al. dedicated to the role of agriculture in the deterioration of land in southeast Iceland. The scholars argue that the rise of population in the 19th century led to higher pressure on commercial agriculture, causing severe land degradation (1). The deterioration occurred because the land could not meet the ever-growing needs for crops and livestock and recover at the same time.
Works Cited
Sigurmundsson, Frioþor Sofus, et al. “The roles of agriculture and climate in land degradation in southeast Iceland AD 1700–1900.” Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography, 2020, pp. 1-19.