Rome, 9 October 2014 — Seven key facts about fans and family farms appear, among other, in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) Background paper for The State of Food and Agriculture 2014.
These are:
• There are more than 570 million farms in the world and more than 500 million of these are owned by families. Family farms represent the vast majority of farms in the world, but less of the share of the world’s farmland, which means that they are, on average, smaller than non-family farms.
• Most of the world’s farms are very small. Worldwide more than 475 million farms are less than 2 hectares in size and more than 410 million farms are less than 1 hectare in size.
• Average farm sizes have decreased and the total number of farms increased from 1960 to 2000.
• Data on farmland distribution are missing for several countries where many of the world’s farms are located, but we may nevertheless conclude that although the vast majority of the world’s farms are smaller than 2 hectares, they control only a small share of the world’s farmland.
Photo source: FAO
• The most comprehensive possible estimate of farmland distribution worldwide suggests that:
– 84 percent of the farms are smaller than 2 hectares and they operate about 12 percent of the farmland.
– Conversely, 16 percent of the world’s farms are larger than 2 hectares and they represent 88 percent of the world’s farmland.
• Although farmland distribution would seem quite unequal at the global level, it is less so in low and lower-middle income countries as well as in East-Asia and the Pacific (excluding China), South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
These estimates are in many ways the most complete description of farms and farmland worldwide, but they do have serious limitations. Efforts to enhance the collection of up-to date agricultural census data, including data on farmland distribution are essential to our having a more representative picture of the number of farms, the number of family farms and farm size as well as farmland distribution worldwide.
Source: FAO
• The 16 October 2014 World Food Day theme – Family Farming: “Feeding the world, caring for the earth” – has been chosen to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farmers.
It focuses world attention on the significant role of family farming in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas.
*Read more on this issue at FAO.
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