Smallholder family farmers are people working in any area of agriculture who derive a significant portion of their income from farming, involve members of the family in managing the farm and rely predominantly on family labour. These farms vary in size, ranging from 0.25 hectares to 10 hectares depending on region, crop and availability of land. Family farms are a global phenomenon. In fact, family farming is the dominant model of agriculture, and its prevalence across areas with diverse levels of development, farm size, capital/land/labour ratios, crops and products, and ecology suggests that family farming offers specific comparative advantages. 1 Smallholder family farmers produce up to 80 per cent of the food in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. These women and men are key contributors to global food security, custodians of vital natural resources and biodiversity, and central to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Despite this reality, they remain a largely untapped resource, and are disproportionately represented among the world’s poor people. The potential economic and social returns of investing in them are enormous. IFAD has always recognized this: this is why, over the course of decades, the organization has invested US$15.8 billion in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries through projects empowering approximately 430 million rural people to break out of poverty, thereby helping to create vibrant rural communities. Continued – and in fact heightened – investment in smallholder family farming is essential to reaching the future we want. This is one of the reasons 2014 was declared the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF). As the post-2015 global development agenda takes shape, the time is ripe for the world to prioritize the investments needed to shape the future we want. There is now wide agreement that a shift to development models that are sustainable, inclusive and equitable is indispensable to complete the task of eradicating poverty. Investing in smallholder family farmers must be a central part of this agenda.