Deep Roots

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] 10

Concepts and realities of family

farming in Asia and the Pacific

Ye Jingzhong, Professor and Deputy Dean at the College of Humanities

and Development Studies of China Agricultural University

egional

erspectives

sia and the Pacific region has the largest number

of family farms in the world. It is home to 60

per cent of the world’s population and to 74 per

cent of the world’s family farmers, with China alone

representing 35 per cent and India 24 per cent of the

estimated 570 million farms worldwide. It is undeni-

able that family farming has played a central role in the

socioeconomic development and well-being of the whole

population in the region.

Recognition of the role of family farming in social, economic

and ecological sustainability has been achieved through the

celebration of the International Year of Family Farming in

2014. As a multilayered social phenomenon, family farming

is too complicated and diversified in different regions and

countries to be clearly delineated. Indeed, it is impossible

to define family farming in Asia and the Pacific without

taking into account the historical and current cultural

repertoires in which it is rooted. When the complexity of

family farming and its differentiated situation under chang-

ing externalities in the region are unfolded, the strengths,

merits and challenges of family farming become clear.

Throughout the history of Asia and the Pacific, family

farming stands as a means of production, a cultural norm

and an institutional arrangement. In the Asia and the

Pacific region, which has the largest number of family

farms in the world, irrigation-intensive agriculture and rice

farming required small social groupings such as families

or villages to be the basic unit of production. Small-scale

family farming is well adapted to the high density of popu-

Image: Danilo O. Victoriano Jr.

‘Harvesting the fruit of love’, Philippines (IYFF photo competition overall winner and Asia, Pacific and Oceania regional winner)