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crofting

crofting

7.7
A system of small farms in Scotland where families rent and work land
  • noun
  • /ˈkrɒftɪŋ/
  • UK
translation icon : crofting
  • In the early part of the last century, this region, like the rest of the Western Isles, hosted a number of strong crofting communities.

Examples

  • The working/crofter class is made up of clerks in the shops, bus drivers, and manual laborers, as well as fishermen and dock workers, including those simultaneously engaged in crofting.

    Academic text (1991)
  • From this domination and its subsequent regulation by the larger British State in the form of Crofting Commissions securing land tenure for folk, the preconditions for the confabulation of Shetland became possible.

    Academic text (1990)
  • Crofting was literally the state-sanctioned imagination of a "traditional community" during the formation of a rural proletariat.

    Academic text (1990)
  • It has since become an established community, with several of the current occupants having grown up there and with a degree of integration with neighbouring crofting communities.

    Academic text (2010)
  • That future is precisely what the original bid for the St Kilda Centre, by the people of the crofting township of Manghursta here in Uig, focused on.

    Blog text (25)
  • Scoraig has its origin in the Highland crofting and fishing community, plus the counter-cultural and Utopian socialist movement of the 1960s, of people seeking an alternative lifestyle.

    Academic text (2010)
  • The industry of Scoraig is dependent on organic horticulture, crofting, fishing, seafood gathering, and tourism, including wildlife diving, all of which are dependent on natural ecosystems and a pristine environment.

    Academic text (2010)
  • Many families in the Highlands still practice crofting to sustain their livelihoods.

  • The government's support for crofting has helped preserve traditional farming techniques in rural Scotland.

  • He learned about crofting during his visit to the Scottish Isles, where small-scale farming is a way of life.

Synonyms

subsistence farming
vscrofting
1 4.5

Farming that grows food mainly for the farmer's family, not for sale

focuses on small rented family plots rather than only self-supply
homesteading
vscrofting
  • US
1 5.5

Living on your own land growing food and keeping animals to meet your needs

occurs on small rented plots worked by family rather than owned land
farming
vscrofting
1.7

Relating to growing crops and raising animals for food

is a specific small rented family system not the broad business activity

How Large

farming
1.7
small farmer
9 2.0
crofting
  • UK
7.7
allotment
  • UK
3 3.7

Surface Forms

crofting singular
croftings plural

Morphology

crofting = croft (semi-transparent) = croft + ing

The word is transparently based on 'croft' plus the noun-forming suffix '-ing', but the sense is specialized to a regional farming system rather than a fully predictable general activity noun.

Etymology

Crofting comes from the old word croft, which means 'a small enclosed farm' in Scotland. So crofting is the way families work and often rent these small farms, and that is why the word means small-scale farming in Scottish rural life.