smallholding

in Kenya. In many parts of Africa and other parts of the world, women are the primary smallholders. In many contexts, women face unequal access to land, markets, knowledge, and other assets needed to maintain their farms. , China A smallholding is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model and managed by a smallholder. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology, involvement of family in labor and economic impact. There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in developing countries of the world alone, supporting almost two billion people. Smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent, smallholdings may not be self-sufficient. Still, they may be valued for providing supplemental sustenance, recreation, and general rural lifestyle appreciation (often as hobby farms). As the sustainable food and local food movements grow in affluent countries, some of these smallholdings are gaining increased economic viability in the developed world as well.…

in Kenya. In many parts of Africa and other parts of the world, women are the primary smallholders. In many contexts, women face unequal access to land, markets, knowledge, and other assets needed to maintain their farms. , China A smallholding is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model and managed by a smallholder. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology, involvement of family in labor and economic impact. There are an estimated 500 million smallholder farms in developing countries of the world alone, supporting almost two billion people. Smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent, smallholdings may not be self-sufficient. Still, they may be valued for providing supplemental sustenance, recreation, and general rural lifestyle appreciation (often as hobby farms). As the sustainable food and local food movements grow in affluent countries, some of these smallholdings are gaining increased economic viability in the developed world as well. Small-scale agriculture is often in tension with industrial agriculture, which finds efficiencies by increasing outputs, monoculture, consolidating land under big agricultural operations, and economies of scale. Certain labor-intensive cash crops, such as cocoa production in Ghana or Côte d'Ivoire, rely heavily on smallholders; globally, as of 2008, 90% of cocoa is grown by smallholders. These farmers rely on cocoa for up to 60 to 90 per cent of their income. Similar trends in supply chains exist in other crops like coffee, palm oil, and bananas. In other markets, small scale agriculture can increase food system investment in small holders improving food security. Today, some companies attempt to include smallholdings into their value chain, providing seeds, feed, or fertilizers to improve production. Because smallholding farms frequently require less industrial inputs and can be an important way to improve food security and sustainable food systems in less-developed contexts, addressing the productivity and financial sustainability of smallholders is an international development priority and is measured by indicator 2.3 of Sustainable Development Goal 2. Additionally, since agriculture has such large impacts on climate change, Project Drawdown described "Sustainable Intensification for Smallholders" as an important method for climate change mitigation. Farm size vary widely by region. In 2025 Latin America and the Caribbean had only 3% of farms because holdings are generally large; in Asia and Africa, smallhold farms of 2 to 50 ha worked around half the farmland; and in Europe, the Americas and Oceania, farms exceeding 1 000 ha controlled the greater part of farmland. The crops produced by small-hold farmers contributed in 2025 approximately 16% of global dietary energy, 12% of proteins, and 9% of fats derived from crops. Their contribution was significant for certain crop types: farms smaller than 5 ha produce almost 50% of global stimulants, spices and aromatic crops, while contributing between 20% – 30% of cereals, fruits and vegetables. ===Tanzania=== Along the upper and middle reaches of the Nduruma River in the Pangani River Basin, Tanzania, there is not enough water to go around. Smallholder farmers address inequities in land and water distribution by enforcing existing traditional local rules. Whilst larger estate farms may have governmental licences guaranteeing rights to the water, a study found that those large-scale farms which adhere to the traditional water rights structures fare better in terms of social reputation, which better ensures their access to water. Adhering to the water law to enforce their permits is less effective, as regional Tanzanian local governments generally attempt to avoid conflict with their populace. On a larger scale, however, existing traditional rules are ineffective in maintaining cooperation among users along the Nduruma River. ===Thailand=== In 1975, there were 4.2 million smallholder farming households in Thailand. In 2013, Thailand had 5.9 million smallholder farming households. The average area of these smallholdings had shrunk from over that period. Instead of farms getting larger and less numerous, as has been the case in the Global North, the reverse happened: they got smaller and more numerous. ==United States== Several definitions of small farm have been formulated in legislation. In 1977 the US Congress, via the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, defined a small farm as one with sales under $20,000. At the time these comprised 70% of farms in the US. The Act sponsored additional research on small farming operations by US land grant universities and their extension services and mandated that an annual report on these activities be issued by the US Secretary of Agriculture. A 1997 study by the United States Small Farms Commission defined small farms as those with less than $250,000 in gross receipts annually on which day-to-day labor and management are provided by the farmer and/or the farm family that owns the production, or owns or leases the productive assets. In 2000, such farms accounted for about 90% of the more than 2.1 million U.S. farms, but only about 40% of U.S. farm production. The concentration of production on fewer and larger operations is a longstanding concern among some segments of the agricultural community. Others view these changes as inevitable, and even necessary to maintain the efficiency and competitiveness of the sector. Farm typology analysis by the USDA Economic Research Service divides the small family farm category into five groups: limited-resource farms; retirement farms; residential/lifestyle farms; farming occupation/lower-sales, farming occupation/high-sales. ===Technology for small farmers=== Many farmers are upset by their inability to fix the new types of high-tech farm equipment. This is due mostly to companies using intellectual property law to prevent farmers from having the legal right to fix their equipment (or gain access to the information to allow them to do it). This has encouraged groups such as Open Source Ecology and Farm Hack to begin to make open-source agricultural machinery. ==European Union== The debate concerning the role of small farms within the European Union is ongoing. The European Commission states that more than three-quarters of farm holdings in the European Union are less than 10 hectares (25 acres), with a large number less than five hectares (12 acres). However it had not established a formal definition of the term that could be used in its Common Agricultural Policy. The public perception of the possible benefits of small-scale farming has led to requests for further studies from the European Commission. ==Bibliography==

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