Over the last decade, increasing efforts have been made to estimate the number of farms and the global distribution of farmland, providing context for the ongoing discourse on the future of farms, farm sizes, food security and poverty. The dynamic nature of agrifood systems transformations, demographic transitions and accompanying changes in farm sizes underline the importance of understanding global distribution of farms and farmland, particularly in the context of the ongoing United Nations Decade of Family Farming (2019–2028). The most comprehensive estimates of the number of farms globally are nevertheless limited, as they rely on older data and suboptimal methodologies. This paper uses the most recent data combined with an improved methodology to provide an up-to-date overview of the global distribution of farms and farmland.

Background paper for The State of Food and Agriculture 2025 – Addressing land degradation across landholding scales.