The estimated 500 million family farmers worldwide are often the main food producers in many regions, making vital contributions to the variety and quality of local diets. Paradoxically, many also struggle on marginal lands and suffer from limited inputs, confining themselves, their families, and their communities to food and nutritional insecurity. The plight of family farmers was taken up this year when the United Nations declared 2014 to be the International Year of family Farming (IYFF). This commitment to transforming the lives of this vulnerable demographic is also a strategic aim of the CGIAR, including Dryland Systems – a research program that targets rural communities forced to endure some of the harshest and most marginal agricultural lands on the planet.