A farmer is a person who is engaged in agrarian business by using land. This is a lifeway that was the dominant occupation of the majority of human beings well into the 20th century. The term farmer usually applies to a person who grows field crops, or has orchards, vineyards or market gardens with a view to selling to others as food. They may, however, provide raw materials for industrial purposes, such as cereals for alcoholic beverages, fruit for juices, hides for leather, and wool or flax for yarns and cloth-making. Farmers may also be involved in rearing cattle for meat or milk. Often, a narrow range of crops or produce is sold for money with which the farmer buys everything else in a market.

A farmer engaged in raising horses or in large-scale cattle or sheep raising 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. 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. Many North American farmers prefer to be referred to as growers due to negative stereotypes associated with the former term. On the other hand, "farmer" is seen as having greater prestige than the conventional English translation for the corresponding word in Chinese and some other languages: "peasant".

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 or other techniques to maximize yield, 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 - or may be driven into such primitive methods simply by poverty or, ironically, against the background of large-scale agribusiness, be an organic farmer growing for discerning consumers in the local food market.

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