Helping small family farms tackle today’s challenges
FAO supports small family farmers overcome the many constraints they face and tackle today’s challenges. FAO helps agricultural and rural development policy thinking through analysis and advocacy. Analysis provides evidence on the strengths and weaknesses of small family farms, and advocacy supports policies that address crucial long-term growth challenges in agriculture but also in the wider economy. FAO analyses smallholder family agriculture in the context of rural transformation looking at all aspects of small farmers’ economic lives and how they adjust to and shape a rapidly changing economic environment. FAO assesses farmers’ competitive advantages and their weaknesses. Productivity, assets, access to markets, off-farm employment, poverty and food security and migration, are just some of the issues. FAO also looks at the rising threats to income generation of small family farm households, which are due to climate change. The evolution of the smallholder family farms is closely related to economic growth and FAO’s work helps to formulate policy options that facilitate the transition of small-scale agriculture towards a dynamic sector with a central role in development.

How Small Family Farms link to FAO’s Strategic Framework
FAO’s Small Family Farms’ work is mainly housed under FAO’s Strategic Objective 3: Reduce rural poverty. This area of work also provides regular inputs to FAO flagship publications: The State of Food Insecurity in the World and The State of Food and Agriculture. Furthermore, Small Family Farms’ work supports FAO’s contribution to the Post–2015 Development Agenda and the related indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals. The Small Family Farms’ work has been central in producing the Inter Agency Report for the G20 on Sustainable Productivity Growth and Bridging the Gap for Small Family Farms.