Has someone put gradations to colonial and post-colonial farming levels? I understand subsistence level farming. "Below" that is tenant farming, sharecropping, cash-renting of others land. But is there a gradation or gradation series above subsistence that have been formally or informally defined?

The various subtypes of farms aren't what I'm after, i.e. cattle farming, small grain farming, fish farming, poultry farming, rice farming as those are basically self-explanatory and have their own methodologies, machinery sets, layouts, building sets and so forth.

Or is it that anyone above subsistence level is simply a "farmer" and that's as far as it goes until one gets to the plantation level at the top end?

Thanks in advance,

Lyle Browning
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