The International Year of Family Farming has focused world attention on the economic and social role played by this type of agriculture, as well as on its potential for meeting global challenges. It has also identified weaknesses and the need for decisive, far-reaching public action to overcome these. However, policy making and implementation require a clear-cut statistical definition of family farming at the global level, as well as a detailed picture of the various forms this agriculture may take at the national level. Hence the proposal to characterise family farming by the conjunction between the domestic unit and the production unit, and to determine criteria for fine-tuning this definition in each country.

This Perspective is the result of research conducted by CIRAD since the late 1990s by the Family Agriculture and Globalisation programme, from 1998 to 2005 and, more recently, by the ARTDev and MOISA joint research units. It is inspired by the books and special issues of journals published during the International Year of Family Farming, and also by the scientific events organised on this occasion.