A smallholder farmer is a producer who rears livestock, raises fish or cultivates crops on a limited scale. A smallholder farm is a family-owned enterprise operating on up to 10 hectares, or 24 acres, with most smallholder farmers cultivating less than 2 hectares, or 5 acres, of land.
Smallholders are often characterized by their family-focused approach, relying mostly on family labor for production and reserving part of their produce for family consumption. Smallholder farmers, sometimes referred to as “small-scale farmers,” also include farmers who own the land they work and those who do not, such as farmers who lease farmland or cultivate land through sharecropping arrangements. As the backbone of locally led food systems, these individuals play a critical role in feeding communities and sustaining rural economies.
Smallholder farmers are integral to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, particularly those related to zero hunger, poverty reduction and sustainable agriculture. By enhancing the productivity and sustainability of smallholder farms, we can significantly impact global food systems and support rural livelihoods.
For much of her day, Budhini Hansda tends to the vegetables on her family’s small plot of land in Odisha, India. Together with her husband, she uses buckets and bowls to irrigate the green stalks growing in neat rows, taking great care in shepherding their crops from seedling to healthy plant to harvest.
“On our 1-acre land, we cultivate eggplant, cauliflower, beans, chili, pumpkins, okra, cabbage and spinach according to the season,” said Budhini, who received training on farming practices from Heifer India. Since then, she has improved the quantity and quality of her garden’s yield, most of which she sells at the local market and the rest of which she keeps for her family’s consumption.
The Hansdas are just one of more than 500 million smallholder farming households worldwide, a cohort of agriculturalists amounting to more than 2 billion people.
Heifer International believes ending poverty and hunger begins with agriculture, and smallholder farmers are at the heart of this effort. With the right knowledge, tools and inputs, farming families like the Hansdas can earn a sustainable living income and supply their communities with nutritious food.
Though the land smallholders work and the total quantity they produce may seem small compared to their larger, industrial counterparts, their impact on the world is anything but minimal: According to research, farms smaller than 5 acres produce roughly 35 percent of the world’s food, and smallholders provide up to 80 percent of the food supply in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
“A smallholder farmer is not only a farmer for his or her profession. It is actually a way of life,” said Oscar Castañeda, Heifer’s senior vice president of Americas programs. Supplying the local food system and feeding the community, he argues, often amounts to more than a profession for the world’s smallholders.
“It is the way that they look at the land,” he said. “They know it as perfectly as they know all the lines of their hands.”
Heifer works with smallholders to fortify this connection between food security and resilient communities. When smallholder farmers produce a higher quality and quantity of food, they can earn more income, better feed their families and provide more food for the local marketplace, reducing prices and improving diets.
Women farmers, like Budhini, play an especially vital role in this effort. Women make up almost half the agricultural labor force in low- and middle-income countries, despite limited access to land rights, finance or extension services, and studies show family health and nutrition are significantly linked to mothers’ knowledge of dietary needs.
“I recently received nutrition training, and I learned how my body and my child need more care and nutrition at this stage,” said Budhini, who has a 7-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son. “Following what I have learned, I am going to ensure a proper [balanced] diet for all my family members.”
Smallholder farmers face a host of challenges due to their size and often remote and rural location, which hinder their ability to grow a prosperous business and provide food for their families. Many lack the ability to access credit, formal markets and high-quality inputs like seeds, farming equipment or medicine to keep their animals healthy.
On top of these obstacles, climate change threatens their already fragile livelihoods. Unpredictable rainfall, rising temperatures and extreme weather events reduce crop yields and increase risks for livestock, leaving smallholders with fewer resources to fall back on.
Limited economic influence and access to finance on account of their size is a major barrier for the world’s smallholders, added Oscar Castañeda. “We help small-scale farmers overcome this obstacle by working through cooperatives as a vehicle to organize technical assistance and organize access to capital.”
When smallholder farmers organize — into agricultural cooperatives, associations, and self-help and women’s groups — they increase their access to markets, technical training and financial services; can participate more equitably in local value chains; and bolster their bargaining power to earn more for their goods.
Supporting farmers to share knowledge and equipment, develop viable business plans and hold each other accountable in a formal group leads to long-term change.
“These cooperatives are so essential in [a farmer’s] day-to-day life,” said Neena Joshi, Heifer’s senior vice president of Asia Programs.
Feeding a global population nearing 9 billion will require resilient food systems that can withstand climate change, resource scarcity and environmental pressures. Smallholder farmers are central to this effort, combating hunger and malnutrition while caring for the Earth.
The largest 1 percent of farms worldwide — those larger than 124 acres — operate more than 70 percent of the world’s farmland. Industrial agriculture, most often practiced on these large farms, consumes vast quantities of pesticides, energy and freshwater resources while generating significant greenhouse gas emissions.
Heifer supports smallholders to incorporate climate-smart agricultural practices to build profitable livelihoods while protecting and preserving the environment. These practices include the thoughtful use of resources and byproducts, like using livestock waste to power biogas stoves for clean cooking fuel, and constructing solar-powered hatcheries to keep growing chicks warm using renewable energy.
Whether they are cultivating poultry in Kenya, cardamom in Guatemala or goats in India, smallholder farmers are uniquely positioned as agents of community change — and they’re actively building a future in which food is available, income is steady and lives free from poverty are possible.
By Alyssa Cogan | February 7, 2022
Cart is empty
Success!
Please be patient while we send you to a confirmation page.
We are unable to process your request. Please try again, or view common solutions on our help page. You can also contact our Donor Services team at 855.9HUNGER (855.948.6437).