The United Nationals declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming to highlight the importance of family farms and smallholders farmers (International Year of Family Farming - IYFF). Throughout the world family farms constitute the majority of all farms, which underlines their importance for food security. FAO promotes the year of family farming as follows: “Family Farmers: feeding the world, caring for the earth” (www.fao.org). In Rural Sociology family farming has always been an important subject of research and many publications in Sociologia Ruralis deal in some way or other with family farming. This virtual issue gathers a selection of publications on family farming in Sociologia Ruralis between 1969 and 2013. Taken together they reflect the development of thought through continuously returning questions (survival, succession, gender) as well as shifting points of attention. Evident is also that the interest in family farming as such somewhat decreased after the 90s. In brief, we can see that the initial debate on family farms’ persistence during capitalism and modernization in Europe and the global North more generally, has given way for discussions on the definition and particular characteristics of family farming, the role of women, part-time farming as a survival strategy, the renascence of family farming in Central and Eastern Europe, the importance of (multifunctional) family farms for rural development and the turn towards sustainable, high quality food production. Finally, we recently witness a returning interest in family farm succession.