In recent years, prominent agricultural institutions, like FAO and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) , have frequently touted the claim that smallholder farmers contribute to 70% or more of global food production.
However, it's evident that this statistic lacks accuracy. The evolution of this figure's history reveals that even a recent revision to 35% is likely overstated by about threefold. While the intentions behind repeatedly using these inflated figures are admirable, their widespread application often leads to misguided policy decisions. IFAD is the institution tasked with mobilizing private capital within a coalition of 132 public development banks, addressing the issue of poverty and hunger. What we need now is a fresh and factually accurate narrative for agricultural and rural development; and, a well targeted practice towards the SDGs.
Update
An updated present-day approach to development thoughtfully selects farmer-entrepreneurs, their associations and cooperatives from among the vast population of rural dwellers. These are individuals who view their farms, no matter how small, and their cooperative initiatives, as vehicles for bringing prosperity to their families, communities, and nations. They are the ones striving to break free from the cycle of poverty while simultaneously creating employment opportunities for other impoverished rural dwellers on their farms, in processing facilities, or within companies providing agricultural services. These farmer-entrepreneurs generate the wealth needed to drive essential climate and environmental action. They are the ones who can benefit from cutting-edge technologies that drive economic progress while decoupling growth from increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Why is this new perspective necessary?
Leading agricultural institutions currently base their efforts on inaccurate information regarding the contribution of farmers, particularly smallholders, to global food supply. Their goal is to unlock the productive potential of smallholders, but the assumption that doubling smallholder productivity will suffice to meet the growing food demand is flawed. Moreover, the public development efforts of governments and multilateral organizations, despite their good intentions, reach only a fraction of the target population. While allocating development aid based on poverty levels might make sense as a social policy, it does not constitute a comprehensive economic development strategy.
Government and development agencies often assume that every farmer is an entrepreneur and provide guidance on agricultural practices and organizational recommendations. They stress the role of poor or indigenous farmers as stewards of forests, soils, and the environment. Neither the first, nor the second is generally true.
Shouldn't our priority be individuals with the ambition and capability to lift themselves out of poverty, thereby benefiting more people through job creation and wealth generation? After all, economic development is the driving force behind employment, climate action, and the overall well-being of billions.
Smallholder farmers members of cooperative harvesting maize
About the numbers
Let's revisit the origins of the story about smallholders and their role in global food supply. In 2014, Dominic Glover traced the origins of this figure, which has made its way into various publications. As Wolfgang Johann von Ioeper from the University of Stellenbosch highlighted, an initial statement from IAASTD in 2009 stating that "In SSA, 70% of agricultural production is subsistence farming" evolved into a 2013 UNEP declaration that "Smallholders [...] contribute 70 percent of the food supply in Africa." Subsequently, as articulated by Andre Leu, IFOAM president, this morphed into "small farmers produce 70% of the world's food." Despite its inaccuracy, this narrative persists.
For the Year of Family Farming (2014), a team led by Sarah Lowder analyzed the number of farms in the world and the land they managed, serving as a proxy for their productive potential. Their results, published in World Development, underline that globally, family farmers oversee 90% of all farms, cultivating 75% of the land. However, the term "family farming" encompasses a broader category than just smallholders. Lowder's research highlights the importance of distinguishing between family farms and small farms. Smallholders with farms less than 2 hectares collectively manage only 12% of agricultural lands worldwide. Therefore, claims that small-scale farmers with holdings less than two hectares significantly contribute to global food production lack substantiation.
With Lowder’s analysis in hand, it becomes clear that the distribution of farm sizes and corresponding production resembles Pen's Parade of Dwarfs and Giants, a famous explanation of income distribution by economist Jan Pen. The Land Coalition emphasizes that the lowest 50% of farmers control only 3% of the land and are generally unemployed, trying to make a living on small plots without proper tools or inputs. In other words, the poor hardly produce and are, therefore, poor. Conversely, a small number of farmers, the top 1%, control more than 70% of the world’s agricultural land. Even within the group of family farms larger than 2 hectares and corporations, the distribution of farm sizes remains skewed.
In essence, 60 million family farmers, predominantly in North America, Europe, Australia, the southern cone of the Americas, and New Zealand, along with large corporations, are the ones truly responsible for feeding the world. In African countries, the situation is not as skewed as elsewhere, with approximately a hundred million very poor farmers residing and working in remote areas often overlooked by governments and development cooperation agencies. For some regions and country groups, these small farms control a larger share of the land, like 39% in Africa, and are thus likely responsible for a larger share, but not necessarily a majority, of food or agricultural production in that part of the world. In African countries with few farms larger than 50 hectares, medium-sized family farms play a crucial role in visible agriculture activities in rural areas.
South Africa’s small-scale farmers still can’t find a place in the food value chain
Family farm with dairy in the Netherlands
Current consensus
Lowder's message, however, failed to resonate with leading agricultural organizations and had little impact on their overarching narrative. For a significant period, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) continued to use the incorrect figure about the contribution of smallholders to world food production, despite repeated alerts on social media platforms to stop using this obsolete figure.
Because the evidence debunks the notion of smallholders as substantial contributors to global food production, Lowder's research did prompt subsequent studies that sought to delve into the actual food output of smallholder farmers. An important study by Ricciardi and his team, frequently cited, drew on data from 55 countries and estimated that farms under 2 hectares globally account for 28–31% of total crop production and 30–34% of the food supply, occupying 24% of gross agricultural area. This study, now embraced by experts and policy makers provides the current consensus on smallholder contributions to global food supply.
Productivity
However, even with this revised perspective, questions remain. Lowder's recent publication in World Development introduces also the 35% figure, which, curiously, does not align with her figure of 12% of land worldwide managed by smallholders. This discrepancy raises questions, especially considering her foundational assumption that yields remain constant regardless of farm size. According to her figure, family farms controlling nearly 80% of land produce an equivalent percentage of food, while the sub-group of smallholder family farmers managing 12% of the land, contribute a disproportionate 35% to global food production.
These two figures, 80% and 35%, imply that medium-sized and large family farms, including highly productive ones in developed countries, only contribute slightly more than the smallholders alone (45%) while controlling more than five times more land than smallholders. This discrepancy challenges her assumption about productivity being agnostic to farm size . It fails to correlate with the analysis that the vast majority of smallholdings are in low-income nations. It's essential to note that the FAO commissioned the initial draft of the study, but Lowder explicitly declares that "The authors... have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper."
Extension
Target 2.3 of the Zero Hunger goal (SDG 2) aims to double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers by 2030. This goal, explicitly pursued by institutions like FAO and IFAD, has merit, assuming that smallholders collectively contribute to 35% of global food production. However, the current development effort doesn't necessarily align with the vast scale of the smallholder population to be engaged in productivity enhancement.
A closer examination of how agricultural extension services function in low and middle-income countries reveals a concerning pattern of exclusion. Farmers with higher incomes and/or larger farm sizes consistently have better access to these services than their poorer, smaller counterparts. A gender gap also persists in access to these services. Available information on the outreach of extension services suggests that, in practice, they reach only a small percentage of farmers through donor-funded actions and national government initiatives. In some cases, commercial companies advise another segment of farmers, typically the middle and higher-income ones, which means that public efforts reach, at most, 4% of smallholder farmers. While some countries report higher percentages, the reality is that most small-scale farmers are left behind.
In Lowder's analysis, land productivity among smallholders didn't emerge, however, as the most significant issue. According to her perplexing findings, attention should be directed toward family farmers with larger-sized holdings and even corporations in developing countries.
But what if smallholder food production were closer to 12% of the total global food production, as is equivalent to the percentage of land managed by smallholders? This is also more likely due to the fact that, according to the FAO, the average income of smallholders is $1,000 per year. Therefore, the total income of all smallholders represents approximately 16% of the value of food production worldwide. It's important to note that smallholders' income is not solely derived from food production. Or, considering also a correlation between farm size and land productivity, what if smallholder food production fell below the 12%?
In such a scenario, existing development cooperation efforts would appear highly inefficient. Doubling the productivity of this extensive population of smallholders would come at enormous costs and yield minimal benefits. And, in the end, the reality is probably closer to that scenario than to the current consensus.
Selection
Ultimately, farm size will not emerge as the determining factor for success. With limited resources, it is in the best interest of governments and international organizations to focus on those actors who have the most significant impact on economic development. This requires a careful selection process that identifies ambitious farmers with an entrepreneurial spirit. Ambition is not confined to the better-off; it can also be found among the poor.
Dare to select
Farmers who have organized and established rural cooperatives give evidence of ambition. The focus should be on cooperatives that have already developed valuable services for their members, are experiencing growth in membership and turnover, and are enthusiastic about making significant investments. Additionally, we should consider farmers and associations willing to invest their own capital and labor. It's important to recognize that not every farmer is an entrepreneur, and not every cooperative shares a unified perspective on the future of their organization and is prepared to invest in it.
Additionally, it's crucial to dispel the myth that the rural poor are the stewards of the environment, soils, and forests. Poverty and rural unemployment are the driving forces behind expanding land frontiers, deforestation, and forest degradation. In Africa, over 90% of all forest cover loss can be attributed to poor agricultural practices, heating, and cooking. Poor families subsist on tiny plots with marginal yields, and when opportunities arise for alternative employment in construction or manufacturing, they are likely to transition. Therefore, fostering economic development and the structural transformation of African economies is paramount to eradicating poverty, consolidating land ownership, and halting forest degradation.
Ambition
In conclusion, it's not big farmers or wealthy farmers but ambitious ones who serve as the central driving force behind a balanced structural transformation of economies. Any rural development policy must carefully select these ambitious rural and agricultural entrepreneurs, support their envisioned transformations, and, in doing so, promote the exodus of the poor from agriculture into the jobs created by these ambitious farmers and their organizations in rural areas. These initiatives have the potential to be transformed into bankable plans, serving as a crucial bridge between the capital mobilized by IFAD and genuine grassroots economic projects. This would create the much-needed pipeline for financial institutions to support and connect with these initiatives.
There is much more to discuss regarding this new narrative for rural development. However, the dissemination of outdated messages by leading agricultural institutes is counterproductive. Even recently, Helene Papper, director of global communications at IFAD, used the obsolete development narrative on LinkedIn. It's high time to embrace a new development theory and practice that aligns with factual data and contemporary realities.
