Smallholder Agriculture Maps

There are no reliable maps of smallholder farms. However, farm field sizes suggest where they are most likely to be found. The number of farms in the world is estimated to be more than 570 million, of which more than 475 million (84 %) are smaller than 2 ha. More than 500 million are managed by families in Africa, Asia and South America. Despite their numbers, smallholders operate on only 12 % of global farmland. These estimates, however, still diverge strongly based on the sources used. An earlier study mentioned that smallholders operate on around 60 % of all cropland. Using the field-size data and GLC-Share cropland map, this WAD3 calculated that around 53 % of all farmland are fields of less than 2 ha. Of course, not all small fields are linked to smallholders. Decreasing trends in the average size of farm holdings are shown in agricultural censuses. Smallholdings should be distinguished from family farms, as that category includes largescale holdings. As a subset of global smallholders, numbers of dryland smallholders have not been estimated reliably. Divergences occur between countries and regions. Nor have largescale farms or other enterprises been separately quantified in the drylands.
Source: Fritz, S., IIASA-IFPRI GEOWIKI, 2015 [AP].