Dictionary Definition
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Noun
- a person who works on a farm
Translations
- German: Knecht
- Latin: operarius rusticus
- Polish: parobek
Related terms
Extensive Definition
A farmer is a person who is engaged in agriculture, raising living
organisms for food or raw materials. This is a way of life that had long been
the dominant occupation of human beings since the dawn of
civilization. Related, but much different, is
gardening.
Definition
The term for a farmer usually applies to a person who grows field crops, and/or manages orchards or vineyards, their products usually sold in a market or, in a subsistence economy, consumed by the family or pooled by the community.A farmer engaged in raising horses, cattle, or
sheep for meat is usually referred to as a rancher,
grazier (Australia) or stockman. Special terms also apply to
other people who husband
domesticated animals, namely shepherd for sheep
farmers and goatherd
for goat farmers. These
terms almost always refer to livestock operations that use
unmanaged rangeland and must import most, if not all, supplemental
feed. When livestock are raised on well-managed pastureland and/or
most silage is grown on-site, most practitioners refer to
themselves as farmers. The term dairy farmer is applied to those
engaged milk production. A poultry farmer is one who
concentrates on raising chickens, turkeys,
domesticated
ducks and geese, or is involved in egg
production. A person who raises a variety of vegetables for market
may be called a truck farmer or market gardener.
In the context of developing
nations or other pre-industrial cultures, most farmers practice
a meager subsistence
agriculture – a simple organic
farming system employing crop
rotation, slash and
burn, or other techniques to maximize efficiency while meeting
the needs of the household or community, using saved seed
which is native to the ecoregion. In developed
nations however, a person using such techniques on small
patches of land might be called a gardener and be considered a
hobbyist.
Alternatively, one may be driven into such methods by poverty or, ironically--against
the background of large-scale agribusiness--may become an organic
farmer growing for discerning consumers in the local food
market. Historically, one subsisting in this way may have been
known as a peasant.
In developed nations, a farmer (as a profession)
is usually defined as someone with an ownership interest in
crops or livestock, and who provides
land or management in their production. Those who provide only
labor are most often called farmhands. Alternatively, growers who
manage farmland for an absentee landowner, sharing the harvest (or
its profits) are known as sharecroppers or
sharefarmers. In the context of agribusiness, a farmer can
be almost anyone – and can legally qualify under agricultural
policy for various subsidies, incentives, and
tax
relief.
farmhand in Thai: ชาวนา
farmhand in Tajik: Кишоварз
farmhand in Yiddish: פארמער
farmhand in Chinese: 农民
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Bauer,
agriculturalist,
agriculturist,
agrologist, agronomist, coffee-planter,
collective farm worker, crofter, cropper, cultivator, dirt farmer, dry
farmer, farm laborer, farmer, gentleman farmer,
granger, grower, harvester, harvestman, haymaker, husbandman, kibbutznik, kolkhoznik, kulak, muzhik, peasant, peasant holder,
picker, planter, plowboy, plowman, raiser, rancher, ranchman, reaper, rustic, sharecropper, sower, tea-planter, tenant farmer,
tiller, tree farmer,
truck farmer, yeoman