One of the agricultural pathways towards sustainable food and nutrition security is through local production of nutritious food, activity in which smallholder farmers play a crucial role. As food consumers, all rural and urban people in developing countries count heavily on the efficiency of their local smallholder farmers to satisfy their food needs. The purpose of this paper is to provide background information on the potential role smallholder farmers in sustainable food and nutrition security; the paper identifies and synthesizes key literature concerning the effectiveness of small scale agricultural interventions in improving nutrition outcomes and highlight some national and international policy recommendations aiming at improving the productivity of smallholder farming systems with the objective of ensuring food and nutrition security. The overall objective of the paper is to contribute to the ‘nutrition-enhancing agriculture and food systems’ organized by FAO’s Food Security and Nutrition team in the framework of the ICN2 process.