farmed

1. (of a type of livestock or crop) bred or grown commercially, especially as opposed to living in the wild.

   farmed salmon

1. make one's living by growing crops or keeping livestock.

   he has farmed organically for years

2. send out or subcontract work to others.

   it saves time and money to farm out some writing work to specialized companies

3. allow someone to collect and keep the revenues from (a tax) on payment of a fee.

   the customs had been farmed to the collector for a fixed sum

Middle English: from Old French ferme, from medieval Latin firma ‘fixed payment’, from Latin firmare ‘fix, settle’ (in medieval Latin ‘contract for’), from firmus ‘constant, firm’; compare with firm². The noun originally denoted a fixed annual amount payable as rent or tax; this is reflected in farm (sense 3 of the verb), which later gave rise to ‘to subcontract’ (farm (sense 2 of the verb)). The noun came to denote a lease, and, in the early 16th century, land leased for farming. The verb sense ‘grow crops or keep livestock’ dates from the early 19th century.