From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe landthe landCOUNTRYSIDEthe countryside thought of as a place where people grow foodlive off the land (=grow or catch all the food you need) A third of the region’s population still lives off the land.work/farm the land (=grow crops) Many people were forced to give up working the land. → land
Examples from the Corpus
work/farm the land• Today most of the women in poor countries work the land.• The last vestiges of serfdom had disappeared in the sixteenth century, and the peasants farmed the land as leaseholders or sharecroppers.• Kalchu was busy all the time, working the land from dawn to dusk.• In general landowners were expected to work the land and to increase productivity, but not to upset the ecological balance.• Although her plan to import earnest and intelligent women failed, she did learn how to work the land.• If nobody wants to work the land - well go round by the villa.• Thousands of tenant farmers who have traditionally farmed the land, have already been displaced.• They are the feudal nobility who own the land, and the landless serfs who work the land. 