FAO Agricultural Development Economics Policy Brief, No. 61.

The policy brief provides the main results and highlights of the FAO Agricultural Development Economics Technical Study La agricultura familiar en el Perú - Brechas, retos y oportunidades (available only in Spanish). The analysis applies a family farming typology based on the level of the farm’s net agricultural income as well as the national poverty lines. Four groups are classified, namely: subsistence, transition (I and II), and consolidated farms. The analysis contained in this policy brief documents various trends that account for the very heterogeneous realities within the large group of family farms in Peru. Almost 99.8 percent of agricultural holdings qualify as family farms, from which two-thirds are classified as subsistence farms. The Andean region concentrates the largest number of subsistence farms. This region also contains the largest number of holdings and land areas operated by family farms overall. Subsistence family farmers have access at a lower level and less degree of adequacy to all the factors of production and inputs analysed.