Types of Farming, Explained by MasterClass Instructors

Farming is the activity of growing agricultural products or raising livestock for profit or personal use, from small-scale family farms to large-scale commercial farms. Over time, agribusiness leaders have embraced new and different farming practices to increase crop production for an ever-growing global population. Others have returned to older methods to restore soil health, protect waterways, or increase biodiversity.

“You can have a potato here, and a potato there, and they might look the same, and they might even taste the same. But one of them may be full of pesticides. One of them may be grown in a system that was really dangerous for farmers or environmentally irresponsible. And so, you can’t tell [just by] looking at it. You’ve got to do a little bit of a deep dive and trace it back to the source.” — Michael Pollan

The earliest signs of agriculture come from the Ice Age; since then, the cultivation of plants and domestication of animals have taken many forms. Here are three broad categories of early farming:

1. 1. Nomadic farming: Nomadic farming applies to livestock farming and means moving herds from one place to another to find water and plants for the animals to eat. Nomadic farmers can use animal products, such as milk, fiber, blood, and dung, throughout an animal’s lifetime and then slaughter the animal when its usefulness declines or in times of scarcity or celebration. “For most of human history,” Michael Pollan says, “meat was special-occasion food.”
2. 2. Sedentary farming: Sedentary farming goes back to ancient humans and simply means farmers grow crops on the same land for multiple years. This type of agriculture moved some humans from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies into permanent settlements.
3. 3. Subsistence farming: Subsistence farmers grow food to feed their families, with no intention of producing a surplus to sell or trade.

Sustainable farming refers to any farming method that supports the long-term health of the land. Industrial agriculture is one of the leading contributors to climate change, from the deforestation needed to create arable land to soil erosion caused by a lack of cover crops to the emission of methane (a greenhouse gas) from livestock and the runoff of animal waste and chemicals into waterways.

Sustainable techniques include increasing biodiversity and improving soil health through crop rotation and intercropping, reducing reliance on synthetic fertilizers made with fossil fuels in favor of compost and manure, and avoiding pesticides harmful to pollinators. Sustainable farmers see their land as part of a larger ecosystem.

According to author Michael Pollan, “a truly sustainable farm will have animals and plants together,” a.k.a. mixed farming. “The plants feed the animals, and the animals feed the plants with their manure. This nutrient cycle is at the heart of sustainable agriculture.”

Extensive and intensive farming are two different ways of increasing farming output. Intensive farming involves getting more food out of less space, while extensive farming refers to land with low production for its size.

Industrial corn farming is one example of intensive agriculture. “The way we grow corn is so efficient that we can now grow up to 300 bushels of corn on an acre of land,” Michael Pollan says. Corn is also high in calories, making it an exceptionally efficient crop. However, efficient corn farming requires investing in expensive equipment, labor, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides.

For an example of extensive agriculture, look to traditional shepherding. Sheep have free range of a large area of land. The output of dairy, wool, and meat is small compared to the large amount of land the sheep require, but this method makes perfect sense in areas where intensive agriculture is impossible.

The word “arable” means suitable for plowing and tillage. Arable farming involves growing cereal crops instead of using land to raise livestock or grow fruits and vegetables. India, the United States, Brazil, and Canada all boast large amounts of arable farmland.

Farmers use different methods depending on their needs, space, and what they want to grow. Here are a few to know.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines family farms as sole proprietorships, partnerships, or family businesses; in other words, these are farms that an individual or family (rather than a corporation) own.

Chef Dominique Crenn grew up visiting one such farm—her grandmother’s: “The first time I came on the farm and I was very young, it was during the summer when they were harvesting potato. And I saw my uncle, just working really hard, and picking up one by one those potato to make sure they were getting the right one. And I saw the sweat and hours on the field, you know, through very hot summer.”

“I was just blown away by it,” Chef Crenn adds. “So that’s how I understood that farmers are the rock star. And farmers had the key of the change that we need to have.” Years later, after Chef Crenn opened her three-Michelin-star restaurant Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, she bought a piece of land in Sonoma, California, to start her own small farm, which supplies the restaurant.

“The industrial food chain. . . produc[es] most of the food that we eat in this country,” Michael Pollan says. “It begins in a state like Iowa with vast monocultures of corn and soy. Monoculture is simply . . . growing [a single crop] over a large amount of space or over a large amount of time, year after year.”

While industrial agriculture, also known as conventional or commercial farming, produces a large amount of food, “the problem with monoculture is that when you grow too much of the same thing, you exhaust the soil,” Michael says. “And so you cannot farm in monoculture without using chemicals and without using synthetic fertilizers.”

A kitchen garden is the smallest possible farm, meant to supplement an individual's or family’s diet. “It’s deeply satisfying to harvest, prepare, and eat food you that you’ve grown yourself,” Chef Alice Waters says. “I have very small garden, maybe about ten feet by ten feet. But I wanna grow things that I can’t find in the farmers’ market.”

Although kitchen gardeners don’t sell what they grow, they use many of the same techniques as professional farmers and represent an important part of the food system.

“The image in our head[s] of ‘organic’ is lots of small farms,” Michael Pollan says. “But in fact, organic is a big business now.” The USDA National Organic Program monitors the use of chemicals on organic farms and certifies all approved organic food products. Getting certified by the USDA can be costly and time-consuming, so many smaller farms choose to forgo certification.

“Large organic farms are still doing some important things that are very different than industrial food production,” Michael adds. “They’re not using synthetic pesticides. They generally take better care of the soil. And they have standards for animal welfare. But they’re monoculture farms.”

Still, there’s one compelling reason to buy organic food over conventional at the grocery store. “Organic food is. . . better for the farm worker,” Michael says. “I mean, think of the farm worker[s] on those fields that are sprayed with synthetic pesticides.”

“How do you recognize a regenerative farm? Well, I think the big thing is a great deal of diversity—many, many crops,” Michael Pollan says. “They have different crops grown in rotation, which is very good for the soil. Whether they’re certified organic or not, they’re growing without pesticides, with great attention to the soil and to sequestering carbon in the soil, which is very good for rolling back climate change.”

Ranchers oversee a large area of land used for breeding and raising many types of grazing livestock, including cows, sheep, or more exotic animals like alpacas or bison. Sometimes the federal government allows ranchers to lease some public land for grazing in addition to their private land.

Urban farmers grow crops in cities, such as rooftops, empty lots, and parkways. One of the many benefits of urban farms is their ability to provide convenient, sustainable food options with nutritional value to areas experiencing food insecurity.

“Bein’ in these urban areas, a lotta times, it’s hard for us to get any kinda healthy food,” activist Ron Finley says. “Some neighborhoods have no access to land whatsoever. And just imagine if we planted parkways, just imagine if every other block in a community had the parkways full of food. So you’ve created a ecosystem. You created a community. You’ve created safety in your neighborhoods.”

“You know, people will ask me, ‘Why did you start growing food?’ I’m like, ‘Cause it’s food, you clown. Why would you not grow food?’” — Ron Finley

See food like you have never seen it before. With the MasterClass Annual Membership, journalist and educator Michael Pollan teaches you how to determine your ingredient sources, shop at the grocery store, and rethink your relationship to food.