Deep Roots

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The Committee on World Food Security’s High Level Panel

of Experts (HLPE) convened by the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO), affirmed the need

to realize the global contributions and local insights for food

and nutrition security and sustainable development provided

by family farmers.

Family farming can bring about transfor-

mational change in the fight against hunger, malnutrition and

the degradation of natural resources and agricultural biodiver-

sity. By definition, family farms perform social, ecological and

production functions in a landscape. Their aggregate scale is

enormous. FAO’s agricultural census data suggests that family

farms represent 98 per cent of all farms and 53 per cent of the

world’s agricultural lands.

This does not include the further

contribution of forest dwellers, fishing communities and

pastoralists that is estimated at another 20 per cent (in the

absence of data to confirm it).

Documentation and review of the status of family farming

in the course of the IYFF concluded that small-scale farm

households demonstrate higher experience in managerial

capacity and a higher level of skills when compared to other

farm enterprises. Reviews and case studies also show that

household resource allocation decisions are made jointly

by the couple or adults managing the family farm. In sum,

human capital in family farms is the key asset in their more

efficient farm management and their ability to channel returns

back to the household. This, coupled with the rich knowl-

edge of natural resources and biodiversity in the landscapes

where farm families have lived for generations, creates unique

opportunities to promote efficient use of natural resources

and sustainable use of biodiversity for healthier, more diverse

and sustainable diets.

The reliance on family management and gendered knowl-

edge of men and women in the household allows for a different

and more diverse set of products to be grown and raised. The

two crucial assets that support diverse and intensive produc-

tion on family farms are knowledge (human capital) and the

agricultural biodiversity that can be usefully maintained and

managed in a small space. Studies of rural and peri-urban

home gardens have amply documented the ability of farm

families to manage high levels of agricultural biodiversity in

small spaces.

Numerous studies of family farms show that

they tend to be structured as mosaics of production niches

that maintain many species of crops and livestock, including

crop varieties and animal breeds that are not commonly found

in large-scale agriculture.

Two of the most important aspects of family farms are:

• what they produce, the diversity and range of plant and

animal products from these farms

• how much they contribute to the total food and nutrition

security in their respective countries.

The data on the number of family farmers is uncertain, as

less than 10 countries in the world actually have a definition

for small family farms. Many reports assert that 70 per cent

or more of the world’s food comes from small family farms.

What foods, where are they grown, how they are marketed

or distributed and consumed is as yet to be documented

at a regional or global level. One of the outcomes of IYFF

should be a clearer and more concrete understanding of the

specific roles and contributions of family farms to sustain-

able agricultural production and food security. Despite the

large gaps in data on the contribution of family farms to

food and nutrition security as well as the challenges they

face, there is a basic agreement that in all cases human

resources, namely the farm household’s knowledge, labour

and management capacity, are key. The knowledge and skills

that accrue when a family lives in a landscape over time

creates a stock of knowledge capital about biodiversity and

Home gardens maintain biodiversity and enhance food security, nutrition and household income

In family farms, home gardens are important reservoirs of

agricultural biodiversity and the knowledge to makes use

of it. With support from the Swiss Agency for Development

and Cooperation, Bioversity International started a home

garden initiative in Nepal in 2002 to study how these small

plots contribute to biodiversity, food security, nutrition and

household income.

Working with Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research

and Development (LI-BIRD) and other partners such as the

Department of Agriculture, the initiative aimed to understand the

scientific basis of the management of agricultural biodiversity in

home garden ecosystems in Nepal.

Thanks to the project interventions, home gardeners saw their

yields nearly triple from 300 kilograms per year to as much as

900 kilograms per year in some households. More households

were selling their garden products as well. Biodiversity increased

in the home gardens of participating households, with 66 species

under cultivation as compared to fewer than 40 species before

the project began. Farmers now maintain higher plant diversity on

farms and cultivate a greater range of plant groups – vegetables,

fruits, spices, medicinal herbs, fodder and ornamentals – and

a larger variety of different vegetables. Participating households

doubled their overall consumption of produce, including the

amount of green leafy vegetables, and have increased their intake

of vitamin A-rich foods like mango and papaya by 36 per cent.

A farmer in her home garden, Nepal. Home gardens play a big role in improving

dietary diversity, bringing in extra income and improving family well-being through

the use and conservation of biodiversity

Image: Bioversity International/Bhuwon Sthapit

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