Deep Roots

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] 26

Family farming in Latin America

and the Caribbean

Sergio Schneider, Professor of Rural Development Sociology at the Department and Graduate

Program of Sociology and Rural Development, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil

here has been remarkable progress in Latin

America and the Caribbean concerning the recog-

nition of the role of family farming in the social and

economic development of a region. This process started

in the mid-1990s in Brazil and has since been expanded

and disseminated to other countries in the region.

Regional initiatives such as the creation, in 2004, of the

Specialized Meeting on Family Farming of Mercosur and,

more recently, initiatives in Central America such as the

Family Farming Plan of El Salvador, have been crucial to

disseminate the concept and meaning of family farming.

Among contributing elements, we can highlight poverty

reduction and the improvement of economic and social indica-

tors resulting from public policies in support of small farmers.

Latin America stands out among the world regions that need

to reduce hunger and poverty and meet the Millennium

Development Goals. The combination of economic growth,

political and institutional stability and incentives for agri-

culture and rural development were recognized in the recent

report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the

International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

and the World Food Programme

on the state of food secu-

rity as factors that contributed to these achievements. Other

elements should be mentioned, such as the fact that, with

the end of the military dictatorships in Latin America at the

end of the 1980s, social actors and civil society organizations

were able to resume their activities and mobilization. This

contributed to helping family farmers organize into move-

ments, unions, associations, cooperatives and so on. These

organizations play an important role in social mobilization

and in demanding policies in support of family farming in

the region. Public policies constitute a third key factor in

expanding the recognition and legitimacy of family farming in

Latin America and the Caribbean. Despite the wide diversity

and different degrees of policies that benefit family farmers,

varying according to different countries, state intervention has

been decisive in supporting family farming.

It is also worth mentioning the work of international organi-

zations and the contribution of scholars and researchers. FAO,

IFAD and other public and private organizations have been

particularly important in promoting progress and dissemina-

tion of the new conception of family farming in the region.

FAO’s definition of family farming has gained recognition and

is gradually expanding its influence. For FAO, family farming

(including all family-based agricultural activities) “is a means

of organizing agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and

aquaculture production, which is managed and operated by a

family and predominantly reliant on family labour, including

both women’s and men’s.” The family and the farm are linked,

coevolve and combine economic, environmental, social and

cultural functions. Similarly, studies, projects and academic

research on family farming are increasing and the training of

human resources in this area is rapidly expanding.

However, there remain some gaps and limitations that must

be overcome. Further effort is required to improve both the

definition and the political and theoretical understanding of

family farming, in order to clarify the implications of either

using typologies or working with generic definitions in poli-

cymaking. Another limiting factor relates to the availability of

data and information on family farming, since census updat-

ing is poor in many countries in the region.

Conceptual evolution of family farming

The current debate on family farming in Latin America inher-

its reflections on peasantry (1960s and 1970s) and small-scale

farming (1980). In most Latin American countries, the peas-

antry category remains and is used to characterize agricultural

establishments and units that more recently have been

referred to as family farming. Similarly, many organizations

and national governments continue to use the definition of

small-scale production/smallholders in making public policies

aimed at this social group.

However, an important theoretical and political shift is

underway, which is leading to a distinction between current

family farming and the categories of the past. The key element

of this shift is a switch of indicators. Until recently, the primary

indicator that defined a peasant or small farmer was the size

of the farmed land (usually up to 2 hectares, according to the

criteria of the World Bank and FAO

). Thus, a peasant was

necessarily a small farmer and vice versa and both of them

were considered smallholders. As scholars and policymakers

began to use the origin of the labour force (family or hired) as

the paradigm to categorize a farmer, the size of the land unit

lost relevance in defining the economic performance or the

production scale of a farm. A producer who has a small area,

a family farmer, can achieve high technological performance

and high productivity, sometimes even higher than that of a

producer with large land areas. The same applies in relation to

income, because non-agricultural revenues and pluriactivity

egional

erspectives