There are more than 600 million farms worldwide in today's agricultural landscape, with more than 90 percent of those run by an individual or a family, and reliant on family labour. Estimates suggest that family farmers occupy around 70 to 80 percent of farmland and produce more than 80 percent of the world’s food in value.
The recently held Global Forum of the UN Decade of Family Farming (UNDFF), 2019-2028, was co-organised by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The event sought to understand the role of family farmers in transforming agrifood systems and the areas that will shape the UNDFF agenda over the next decade. The FAO believes family farmers have a pivotal part to play in contributing to agriculture and rural areas’ economic, environmental, social and cultural sustainability.
FAMILY FARMERS’ ROLE IN AGRICULTURE
Family farming is “a means of organising agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production which is managed and operated by a family and predominantly reliant on family capital and labour, including both women’s and men’s,” the FAO revealed in 2014. “In both developed and developing countries, family farming represents the predominant form of food and agricultural production,” said Guilherme Brady, FAO Partnerships Officer. Small-scale family farmers with less than two hectares comprise 84 percent of family farmers, most of whom are in Asia and the Pacific region. The small-scale majority holds great potential for productivity, the FAO states, yet it operates only 12 percent of all agricultural land. Despite occupying just over a tenth of the world's agricultural space, they produce 36 percent of its food.
NAVIGATING PRICE AND POLITICAL VOLATILITY
Family farming is the foundation of food security, and healthy and sustainable food systems. Yet, “family farmers are generally among the most affected by poverty and vulnerability, and face high levels of economic, financial, social and environmental risk,” added Brady. Almost 80 percent of the globe’s poor and food insecure live in rural areas, depending on agricultural production for their subsistence. Most rural poor are small-scale family food producers who rely on agriculture and aquaculture for their food and income.
Farming insurer NFU Mutual agrees that the current key challenge facing family farms in the UK is today’s rising input costs and the uncertainty over changes to agricultural policy following Brexit, the insurance company's Senior Press Officer, Matt Wilson, said. The government initially proposed a post-Brexit subsidy scheme called Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMs), but he adds that Liz Truss’s government appears to be reviewing that at present. Following its study, NFU Mutual explained that planning and discussions about these issues enabled families to start securing their farms and their family’s financial future; financial planning can also offer security to the farming community.
Family Farming- Farmers of the World.
Survey results from the NFU Mutual’s recently-released Farm Handover guide found that increasingly, farmers have pensions, investments or savings that can help ease handovers to the next generation of farmers. The report found that 75 percent of farmers now have a pension, up from 66 percent in 2019. “Pensions provide an independent source of income for the older generation, giving them the freedom to take less from the farm,” said Sean McCann, Chartered Financial Planner, NFU Mutual. This can be particularly important when two, and sometimes three, generations are relying on the farm for their livelihood.
OTHER MAIN CHALLENGES FACING FAMILY FARMERS
Today's lack of access to and control over land and productive resources is one of the major challenges faced by small-scale family farming. The significant and sizable sector also experiences a digital gap, with family farmers lacking access to information and knowledge, along with the appropriate and efficient technologies. Finance and security are some of the other critical obstacles affecting family farming, including the ability to engage in tailored rural services, credit and other financial instruments, insurance and social protection schemes, reliable and remunerative markets, and other income-generating opportunities.
Women farmers remain the most affected by poverty, and there is a lack of opportunities for on- and off-farm youth employment in rural areas. The consequential inadequate level of generational turnover in farming is mainly due to farmers ageing, an internationally observable demographic trend, the FAO stated. In the current financial climate, price increases and a reduction in economic activities determined by the current crisis, impact the final income that family farmers generate – the income results from the differentiation of economic activities going beyond food production and selling. As a result, the shortage in family income can severely impact their capacity and decision to continue producing, as inputs for production will compete with immediate and basic family needs.
INSIGHTS FOR THE NEXT DECADE
“Building an enabling policy environment to support the diverse and multi-layered contributions of family farming to sustainable development requires strong and sustained political commitment,” Guilherme Brady of the FAO emphasised. The FAO added that effective policy interventions to support family farmers and their multidimensional nature cannot be approached through traditional sectoral methods, instead requiring a set of integrated, coherent and cross-sectoral policies, strategies and programmes that address the economic, environmental and social constraints that family farmers and their communities face. To ensure sound and effective policies for family farming are developed and implemented, the target of the public policies – the beneficiaries – must be identified. “Family farmers play multiple roles in our agri-food systems, and often general agricultural policies tend to miss those who are most in need,” added Brady.
PROTECTING FUTURE GENERATIONS
Succession planning is under the agricultural spotlight as farming families strive to prepare for the future. Following its annual Voice of the Farmer study, NFU Mutual revealed that almost half of the farms now have a succession plan and a further 18 percent recognise how important it is to do so. The report states that more than a quarter of farmers (28 percent) plan to cut back or cease farming, up from 20 percent in 2021. However, NFU Mutual’s 2022 survey indicated that 58 percent of farmers with less than 21 hectares did not have a plan or did not see this as relevant, research that suggests that more farmers are considering reducing their involvement and passing responsibility to the younger generation. A third of the farmers said they have diversified and were operating commercial activities on their land.
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
The FAO states that agri-food systems are threatened by structural weaknesses and face increasingly pressing challenges such as hunger and diet-related diseases. Additionally, they experience the need to provide a growing global population with sufficient and healthy food, reduce food loss and waste, reduce natural resources, increase greenhouse gas emissions, environmental degradation, climate change, and its related shocks and stresses. “Despite some narrative claiming that they are inefficient, family farmers continue demonstrating that when supported with affirmative policies and programmes, they have a unique capacity to re-dress failures and weaknesses of agri-food systems, responding to global problems with contextualised, local solutions,” said Brady. Family farming is the main occupation of rural populations in several realities, and the FAO stated that more investments are needed to strengthen its capacity to deliver services, creating jobs and income opportunities in rural areas. Family farmers’ significant contributions to feeding their communities and the cities during the hardships of the pandemic caused growing attention and recognition at international level, and the time has arrived to include them in development strategies, not as beneficiaries, but as fundamental development actors and partners.
