Cryptic crossword clue
Suffer poverty cultivating hostile farmland 4,2,4,5

The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 4 plus 2 plus 4 plus 5 letter word FALL ON HARD TIMES

I've seen this crossword clue in The Daily Telegraph
F
A
L
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O
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H
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D
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S

Buddy explains!

The straight part
We know that "Suffer poverty" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case suffer poverty = fall on hard times.
The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.
This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.

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