Who are the world’s small farmers?

Marin Hirschfeld writes

It is commonly believed that there are around 500 million small farms – defined as being less than 2 hectares – in the world. The conventional wisdom is that the number of small farms is increasing whilst farm sizes are getting smaller, and this trend will continue for 20-30 years. However there is a paucity of reliable data and some debate as to what the trends are in terms of numbers of small farms, the average farm size and the relative productivity of small and large farms. Censuses are only carried out every 10 years and their country coverage is incomplete. Existing data can sometimes be conflicting and open to different interpretations. Whatever the precise number and trends, smallholders will remain an important sector of world agriculture and are the mainstay for food security in most developing countries...[more]