Small Farms don’t Produce Most the of the Worlds’ Food – But they Could Produce All

Resilience.org, 2019

How much of the world’s food do smallholders produce? by Vincent Ricciardi and colleagues, published in Global Food Security, the researchers estimate that small farms produce “28–31% of total crop production and 30–34% of food supply on 24% of gross agricultural area.” They define small farms as those having less than 2 hectare.  In this research, livestock production and fisheries are not included. The selected farm size limit is very small, In Sweden units with less than 2 hectares are not even defined as a farm. Our own farm with around 1 hectare of vegetables and fruits, 8 hectares of arable grassland and 13 hectares of permanent grassland certainly would qualify as a very small farm in this country.