Deep Roots

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] 11

egional

erspectives

lation and relatively scarce agricultural resources. Family

farming has been an essential part of the folk custom and

rural culture of Asian societies since it first appeared. This

cultural aspect of family farming explains why research

on Asian rural societies (for example, Japan and China)

pays so much attention to ‘family’. Family farming is seen

as the comprehensive outcome of land legacy, ancestral

rules, household rights to common agricultural resources

and strong social bonds interwoven by individual families.

Peasant agriculture and family farming has supported the

orderly operation of traditional agrarian society due to its

incomparable advantages in production organization and

social stabilization. Many Asian countries formally insti-

tutionalize the family as the fundamental farming unit

through land reform and legislation.

The dominant role of family farming in Asian agriculture

is a constant feature across time and space in this region.

From the past to the present, the basic and primary opera-

tive unit of agriculture in Asian societies has always been

the family. During the post-war development period in the

region, debates on the relationship between small family

farms and large-scale, commercial farms persisted and were

often focused on economic aspects. Academic proponents

of family farming usually tried to explain its persistence

through the economics of its organizing process and the

unique features of agriculture. Far from being substi-

tuted by large-scale commercial farms as both neoclassical

economics and Marxist theories assumed, family farming

adapts well and thrives in modern times through its diverse

modalities in different societies. As the most important way

to realize the multifunctionality of agriculture, the vitality

and significance of family farming in Asia and the Pacific

particularly centres on the maintenance of livelihood, agro-

ecological protection and rural-urban development. Hunger

and malnutrition predominate in Asia, especially among

family farmers. According to the World Bank (2004), small

family farmers in South and East Asia and sub-Saharan

Africa represent over 92 per cent of the world’s dollar-

poor. However, family farming as such does not necessarily

induce poverty. With positive public investment and policy

support, family farming is able to provide a decent income

for rural people. In Japan, for instance, the average income

per farming household in 2012 was about US$58,500, of

which a considerable part (31.1 per cent) came from agri-

cultural activities.

The success of family farming lies not in specialization

or profit maximization, but in practising farming to meet

diverse household needs rather than responding to market

opportunities alone. To satisfy the various needs of family

livelihood (such as food, nutrition, clothing and cash

income), small family farms usually adopt a scope economy

rather than the scale economy used in large industrial

farms. Hence, they are more productive than large mono-

cropping farms in terms of resource utilization. Family

farming, as a means of livelihood, cannot be perceived

separately from the pluriactive role of rural households.

However, family farming’s contribution to non-commod-

ified household production is largely underestimated in

national economies.

In terms of biological sustainability, family farmers in

Asia and the Pacific often develop farming systems and

practices to adapt to different local conditions, marginal

land endowments and climatic variability. Diversification

is therefore an important farm strategy for managing

production risk in small farming systems. The biodiversity

feature of family farming and the traditional agroecological

system that many family farms maintain have extraordinary

significance for this region, which has scarce agricultural

resources and is vulnerable to various climatic disas-

ters. In addition, family farmers help build stronger rural

communities since they are more integrated with the local

economy. Small farms not only help reduce unemployment,

but also help in maintaining a vibrant local economy that

can help build stronger rural communities. Rural develop-

ment practices currently emerging in Asian societies are

not promoted through top-down policy interventions, but

largely driven by the grass-roots activities and innovations

of family farmers. In a very explicit sense, a series of new

decentralized markets, or nested markets, is arising in

the countryside as the outcome of the strength of family

farmers’ dynamics and initiatives. The defence of family

farming in Asian societies is beginning to translate into

diversified rural development practices (such as agritour-

ism and new markets), improved nutrition and food safety

for rural and urban people, and above all shared values on

the beauty of agriculture and the countryside.

Family farming in Asia and the Pacific region is highly

diverse, making it difficult to come up with a simple defini-

tion. Spanning from full-time family members farming with

the support of wage labour, as in China, to small-scale and

subsistence farmers as in Pakistan and the Pacific Islands,

family farming can be characterized in a general sense as

family-based and small-scale. Defining family farming

implies an ongoing process of increased understanding of

situations at the local and national levels. Family farming

is a self-evident phenomenon in Asia. However, there is

hardly a clear and comprehensive definition that spans

all the different realities at national or at regional level in

Asia and the Pacific. Similarly, the term ‘family farm’ is not

commonly used in the history of Asian agriculture. Instead,

there are some parallel concepts deeply rooted in different

cultures and languages when referring to this family-based

farming unit. In contrast to Western countries such as in

Europe and North America, the old ‘agrarian question’ has

never been ‘resolved’ in Asian countries as family farming

has not disappeared nor been replaced by commercial farms

and agribusiness. Debates and analysis concerning family

farming and family farms boomed only when ‘family farming’

in Asian countries seemed problematic in encountering

globalized capitalism and West-shaped modernization.

Under the umbrella term ‘family farm’, the form of family-

based agricultural operation as such represents drastic

differentiation along with agrarian change in the region in

general. Japan and China might be taken as examples to

explore the diversity and differentiation of family farming

between and within countries. Both countries have official

classification and scholarly debates regarding family farming.

Yet due to their different positions in terms of economic