A Farm Was Originally a Fixed Rent
Farming is working land to grow food. The word farm did not mean land at all at first; it meant the fixed sum paid to lease it.
Farming is the business of growing crops and raising animals. The surprise is in the noun. Medieval *ferme* meant a fixed payment — land was let out at a set annual sum, and the holding took the name of the deal. The old sense survives in *farming out* work: handing it over on fixed terms.
- Working land to produce food. *Farming has changed since 1950.*
- Raising a particular thing. *Fish farming.*
- Farming out — giving work to someone else. *They farmed out the packing.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | farming | Arable farming. |
| Verb | farm | They farm 200 acres. |
| Person | farmer | A dairy farmer. |
| Noun | farm | A hill farm. |
| Adjective | farmed | Farmed salmon. |
How it is used in a sentence
- Farming employs fewer people than it used to.Uncountable, as an industry.
- They moved to mixed farming after the drought.Mixed means crops and livestock together.
- The work was farmed out to three suppliers.The old contracting sense.
Kinds of farming
- Arable — growing crops
- Pastoral — raising grazing animals
- Mixed — both together
- Subsistence — growing to eat rather than to sell
- Intensive / extensive — high output per acre, or spread thinly over more land
From Medieval Latin *firma*, a fixed payment, from Latin *firmus*, firm. The same root gives *firm* in both its senses: solid, and a business with a settled name.
Why does *farm out* mean to subcontract?
Because the original farm was a contract at a fixed price. To farm out work is to let it at agreed terms, exactly as land once was.
Farming or agriculture?
The same activity. Agriculture is the formal and statistical word; farming is what people say.