This week on the blog, we're starting our dive into the basic structures of premodern farming, beginning with a look at common patterns of smaller subsistence farmers. How did these families work to manage the inherent risks of subsistence farming?https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/ …
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It's a bit more complex than this. In times of scarcity, the farmers are going to be actively withholding their meager harvests from the markets (and probably hiding them from the tax man), in which case, your sister's husband or neighbor may be a better source of food.
But you are also preparing for different kinds of crises. Some hit the whole village, some hit individual households. For whole-village crises, you are also cultivating vertical ties, which is next week's topic.
