marginal farmer

Noun

marginal farmer (plural marginal farmers)

1. A farmer with a bare subsistence level of income from their own land, sometimes working as an agricultural laborer.
   • In India, the percentage of marginal farmers among all farmers is nearly 70%.
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see marginal, farmer.
   • First, in equilibrium the marginal (last) farmer finds that the cost of the last unit of fertilizer (i.e. the market price) is just equal to its benefit.2007, Liam Brunt, “Where there’s muck, there’s brass”, in The Economic History Review, volume 60, number 2, Wiley Online Library, →DOI, →ISSN, page 357
   • (“Marginal” in an economic sense means “additional” or “incremental,” but has no normative or pejorative connotation.) At that point, adding more workers to a unit of farmland leads to less and less additional output, because the land cannot accommodate so many workers. […] No marginal product, or...2015, Raj Bhala, Dictionary of International Trade Law, 3rd Edition (2015), →ISBN