Smallholders and Family Farmers

Eighty percent of the farmland in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia is managed by smallholders (working on up to 10 hectares). While 75 percent of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and 5 animal species, making the global food system highly vulnerable to shocks, biodiversity is key to smallholder systems who keep many rustic and climate-resilient varieties and breeds alive.

Out of the 2.5 billion people in poor countries living directly from the food and agriculture sector, 1.5 billion people live in smallholder households. Many of those households are extremely poor: overall, the highest incidence of workers living with their families below the poverty line is associated with employment in agriculture.

Women comprise an average of 43 percent of the agricultural labour force of developing countries up to almost 50 percent in Eastern and Southeastern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Should women farmers have the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30 percent, lifting 100-150 million people out of hunger. Women are the quiet drivers of change towards more sustainable production systems and a more varied and healthier diet.

Smallholders provide up to 80 percent of the food supply in Asian and sub-Saharan Africa. Their economic viability and contributions to diversified landscape and culture is threatened by competitive pressure from globalization and integration into common economic areas; their fate is either to disappear and become purely self-subsistence producers, or to grow into larger units that can compete with large industrialized farms