FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean
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Who produces the food we consume in Latin America and the Caribbean?
Family farming produces a large share of the region’s food, but it faces structural limitations and significant statistical invisibility. This combination weakens its development and limits the design of effective public policies.
Higüey, Dominican Republic. Elizabeth Jean, Assistant at the Shade House of the Gina Jaragua Agricultural Cooperative and Multiple Services. © FAO/Constanza Soudy
A large share of the fresh foods consumed in Latin America and the Caribbean comes from family farming. Behind every vegetable, grain, or fruit are farming families who sustain this production, often working with less land, fewer resources, and very limited visibility in public policies.
Their role is central to food security. Across the region, family farming accounts for around 50 % of the cultivated area dedicated to products such as vegetables, fruits, cereals, and roots and tubers, and in some of these crops, its share exceeds 80 %.
However, this prominence does not always translate into better living conditions or greater recognition. This is where one of the main tensions in the regional food system emerges: those who produce a large share of the food often face greater difficulties in accessing land, financing, technical assistance, and other development opportunities.
Producing more with less
Family farming produces a large share of food, but it does so with limited resources. Although most farms belong to this sector, they only cover 25 % of agricultural land.
In practice, this means that a substantial share of food is produced on small plots, where margins are tight and the capacity to adapt is limited. In countries such as Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru, the number of farms has increased in recent years, while the average size of agricultural land has remained largely unchanged.
As a result, more families are now producing on less land. In some cases, plot sizes have even shrunk by between 4 % and 35 %.
These percentages reflect a tangible reality. Farming families must constantly make decisions under pressure: how to produce more with less land, how to deal with extreme climate events, and how to sustain their incomes in uncertain economic conditions.
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Smart Agro, innovation and sustainable development in Ventaquemada, Boyacá, Colombia. © FAO
More than a production model
Family farming is much more than a way of producing food. FAO defines it as a form of organizing agricultural, forestry, fisheries, and pastoral production that is managed and operated by a family, and relies primarily on family labor.
This close link between the family and the productive activity is one of its defining features. Those who work the land are also the ones who make decisions about production and who depend directly on it for their livelihoods.
Its importance is also reflected in the role it plays in rural areas. Family farming sustains rural communities, preserves traditional knowledge, and contributes to the resilience of territories. Through crop diversification and practices based on local knowledge, it can also help address challenges such as droughts, pests, and market fluctuations.
In this sense, measuring it only in terms of productivity leaves out a fundamental part of its value.
A sector that barely appears in the data
The challenges facing family farming are not only related to production. Limited access to recent data is also a major constraint when it comes to designing policies for the sector. In Latin America and the Caribbean, agricultural censuses are not always carried out as frequently as needed. Although several countries have recently made progress in updating them, significant information gaps remain. In many cases, it is still difficult to determine with precision who family farmers are, where they are located, what they produce, and what resources they have.
These information gaps make it harder to design targeted public policies. Without reliable data, governments have a more limited capacity to assess the contribution of family farming to food production, rural employment, sustainable natural resource management, and the dynamism of rural territories.
At the same time, the region has made important progress in addressing this challenge. Currently, 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have an official definition of family farming adapted to their national contexts and realities, making it the region that has advanced the most in this type of recognition. While these definitions reflect diverse realities, they also share common elements that help improve the understanding of family farming and support the design of more effective public policies.
However, a key challenge remains: turning this recognition into better tools to measure and make family farming more visible. Without stronger statistical visibility, it becomes more difficult to design policies that reflect its importance for the transition toward more inclusive, efficient, sustainable, and resilient agrifood systems.
Agricultural producers working on horticultural crops in Constanza, Dominican Republic, during a field visit. © FAO/Alexander Taveras
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Chaco, Paraguay. Field day for cotton harvesting using machinery. © FAO/Maik Flaming
Visibility to design better policies
Addressing this challenge is one of the objectives of the FAO and UNDP report Characterization of Family Farming in Latin America and the Caribbean 2025, which highlights the need to move toward more comprehensive definitions and to generate comparable data across countries.
Without current statistics, designing effective policies for the sector remains extremely difficult. This is why having reliable data is not only about improving data collection, but also about establishing common frameworks that make it possible to understand the diversity of family farming and translate that knowledge into more effective policies.
At the international level, initiatives such as the United Nations Decade of Family Farming (2019–2028) aim to position this sector as a key pillar in efforts to eradicate hunger. At the same time, FAO promotes its development through the Regional Technical Platform for Family Farming, which brings together information, experiences, and tools to support farming families.
In this context, data is essential to guide action, but it is not enough on its own. Behind every food product are production systems that require the right conditions to endure over time. Without better indicators and more effective policies, not only the future of millions of farming families is at risk, but also a fundamental part of the region’s food supply.
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