Dear Eteri Kharaishvili, 

The United Nations has declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming. Rightly so, says Eve Crowley, Principal Advisor for Gender, Equity and Rural Employment at the FAO, for family farmers play a key role in numerous areas of rural life. But this does not mean that they have a positive impact per se; support addressing them needs to be considered very thoroughly.Family Farming Plays Key Role in Sustainable Development, Meeting Zero Hunger Challenge, Secretary-General Says in Message to Global Forum

Family farming is one of the most predominant forms of agriculture world-wide, both in developing and in developed countries. The sector comprises a wide spectrum of farm sizes and types, ranging from very large land holdings in high-income economies that are easily cultivated by one or two family members with the use of labour-saving machinery and hired labour to the small holdings of a few hectares or less in low-income economies. These small family farms, run by small producers are by far, the most numerous: globally, there are approximately 525 million small family farms, 290 million of which are in China and India alone (IFPRI, 2012). Thus, although family farmers and small producers are not identical groups, they share much common ground and hence face a series of similar issues.

Family farming includes all family-based agricultural activities, and it is linked to several areas of rural development. Family farming is a means of organizing agricultural, forestry, fisheries, pastoral and aquaculture production which is managed and operated by a family and predominantly reliant on family labour, including both women’s and men’s.



Both in developing and developed countries, family farming is the predominant form of agriculture in the food production sector.

At national level, there are a number of factors that are key for a successful development of family farming, such as: agro-ecological conditions and territorial characteristics; policy environment; access to markets; access to land and natural resources; access to technology and extension services; access to finance; demographic, economic and socio-cultural conditions; availability of specialized education among others.

Family farming has an important socio-economic, environmental and cultural role.

THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF FAMILY FARMING

The 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) aims to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas. The goal of the 2014 IYFF is to reposition family farming at the centre of agricultural, environmental and social policies in the national agendas by identifying gaps and opportunities to promote a shift towards a more equal and balanced development. The 2014 IYFF will promote broad discussion and cooperation at the national, regional and global levels to increase awareness and understanding of the challenges faced by smallholders and help identify efficient ways to support family farmers.

1. Understand family farmers’ motivation-Even though family farming may not appear as neat and scientific as commercial farming, there are significant gains to be made by supporting family farming more effectively. One of the main reasons is that as the family and the farm are linked and co-evolve, they combine not only economic functions but also a range of other ‘hidden’ functions, including environmental, reproductive, social and cultural ones, often in lieu of state institutions or the private sector

2. The flipside of the coin-This is undoubtedly a positive development. Yet the rosy picture painted so far of family farming must be tempered with some limitations. Firstly, even though the lower supervision costs make family farming relatively productive in developing countries, the number of economically active family members often limits the scale of production that is possible, unless families have access to mechanisation or are organised into producer organisations and co-operatives.

3. Beware of undesirable side effects-Beyond these shortcomings, there are a range of thorny questions that need to be addressed. For instance, would greater support to family farming by agricultural institutions come back as a boomerang in the form of even more child labour, gender disparity, and environmental degradation? Rural survival is about much more than food security.

Regards,

Prem Baboo

Family farming is a business strategic for society and the economy. The Family farming is one of the bases for a style of growth that means better employment opportunities, income and reduced poverty, if achieved a favorable insertion in chains value (greater retention of surplus generated) and heterogeneity is exceeded structure that defines it. The Agriculture family has the potential to support business development farming.

Family farming can and should become a structure that generates chains or technical links complementarity with big business national, regional or international. This merely recognizing the reality of economic and social actors in most value chains

existing. The suggested strategy is in that family farming can enter the accumulation process favorable conditions (higher retention surplus), and it develops from

network companies  from several small and medium rural enterprises , which

It involves the organization of the same to concentrate the supply of what they produce

and demand what they need to produce, allowing relationships more favorable to the market, better prices and increased profitability. 

More information in: 

http://www.fao.org/docrep/019/i3788s/i3788s.pdf

Dear Eter,

Here you could find a study about Family Farming conducted by our research center back in 2014: http://www.iset-pi.ge/index.php/en/agricultural-policy-projects/102-agriculture/projects-of-aprc/aprc-completed-projects/339-the-role-of-family-farming-in-the-sustainable-development-of-agriculture-sector-and-poverty-reduction

http://www.iset-pi.ge/images/Projects_of_APRC/The_Role_of_Family_Farming_Final_Feb_27_2015.pdf

Stimation of optimum fertilizer rates

The following steps are generally accepted and followed for estimation of optimum fertilizer rates:

Identification of site category → based on main agro-ecological site characteristics

Estimation of crop target yield t ha-1 (see attached Table )

Evaluation of soil nutrient status based on laboratory determinations and sufficiency ranges from tables (humus % → level of N supply, AL-P2O5 → level of P supply , AL-K2O → level of K supply)

Estimation of crop specific requirement for unit yield, see attached  Table  (e.g. kg t-1) Correction is needed depending on soil nutrient level: a.) rates may be reduced at good sufficiency ranges b.) rates may be increased at low nutrient supply level.

Calculation of nutrient (expressed in active agent) requirement of target yield Requirement = crop specific requirement for unit yield x planned yield level (t/ha)

Corrections (based on factors modifying nutrient requirements i.e. manure, pre-crop residue incorporation, irrigation etc.)

Calculation of fertilizer requirement (NPK kg ha-1)

Calculation of nutrient balance = INPUTS - OUTPUTS

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Which_is_the_correct_method_for_the_determination_of_fertilizer_per_pot?_tpcectx=profile_questions

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_right_procedure_for_the_application_of_fertilization_in_pot_experiments?_tpcectx=profile_questions

The question is whether for your particular research you can equate family farming with subsistence farming. If that is the case, there is a huge amount of studies that discuss the impact of this mode of production on development, for example here http://edoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/HALCoRe_derivate_00000947/sr_vol22.pdf.

Family farming concept is wider than subsistence farming.

Dear Eteri Kharaishvili,

Pls read through Hayami, Yujiro, for some of the earliest works (including theoretical) on family farms. 

Dear Colleagues, thank you very much. If we discuss family farming in the context of large, medium and small, more than 80% accounts on small  family farming in Georgia. the products they produce are mostly used to satisfy only their demand. This is one of the main obstacle for developing agricultural sector. Nowadays, we have a research how to develop such kind of farming, your suggestions are very important for my research.

The family is first and the basic work force in every agricultural practice, despite its limitation, the family farming type helps in the guarantee of food sufficiency in the family and immediate community. most rural farmers hardly have access to farm credit facilities or inputs, they depend largely on their immediate family as their source of workforce and produce for their consumption and very little for sales. The advantage is that the farmers must continue to produce their crops or livestock, but the environmental implication of this is that their impact on the environment is very minimal, their production system in this situation is sustainable with minimum input, but production at this stage cannot guarantee industrial development. But while trying to increase the labor force for family agriculture, it tend to make the farmers marry or produce more children to be used as labor force contributing to the problem of population increase and resources depletion. this situation becomes a spiral phenomenon, taking us back to Thomas Malthus and Esther Boserup's population theories

Dear Chris-Valentine, thank you very much for such important answer.

Read several papers I have published in this concern and loaded on REPEC. Com site (Research Papers on Economics)

Dear Ibrahim, thank you very much.

There is a problem. of course, of the low technological and economic level of family farms in developing countries. One way to cope with this is the cooperation of outgrowers with modern agro-industrial farms. This approach was applied in a commercial project in one of the African countries.

Dear Gregory, thank you very much. I agree with your opinion.

The success and sustainability of family farms depend on the type of crops or farming systems that they adopt. I have been working in the specific context of rubber in India. Rubber as is well known, is a perennial commercial crop mostly grown in the tropical countries and mostly within Asia. The case of rubber Iam talking about in the context of Southern India is interesting. Rubber was introduced as a plantation crop in the early 1990s by the Colonial powers in Kerala and the success of the plantations in the first generation of 30 years had encouraged a large number of small family farms to adopt the same and by 1960, almost half of the rubber planted area was in the hands of the small farmers with average holding size of 2-3 ha. The emergence of family based small farms had been further fostered by the state interventions through various farmer support policies, including planting subsidies, marketing, R&D, extension, etc. If we turn back, now a vast majority of the family farms have made significant gains out of cultivating rubber for about 2-3 generations with surplus invested in human development, in particular. The same development process is now being tried in India's North Eastern region where, rubber development is envisaged to help the tribal small farms to improve their livelihoods. The concept of family farm is promoted in this development process as unemployed family members are incorporated as workers in the rubber holdings and take benefits of wages as well as rubber incomes. The story thus highlights that the selection of crop or the farming system is important in determining the success and sustainability of farm livelihoods. At the same time, a vast segment of small and marginal family based farmers in other parts of India and elsewhere suffer from vulnerability and distress as the crops they chose (being annual/ seasonal ones) do not yield them the expected returns and other socio-economic benefits. This is well captured in a large number of studies on agrarian crisis (leading to farmer suicides as well) in India in particular. This suggests that the sustainable future of family farms warrant strong support from the state agencies and if not, at least the family farms should be in a position to strengthen their stake through mutual co-operation and mobilisation for collective action. In India, the heterogeneity of the family farms (as defined by the size of farm holdings) matters a lot in creating avenues for cooperation and collective action.

Dear Pozhamkandath, thank you very much for such interesting explanation.

Dear Eteri,

I found in my doctoral research that the FAMILY element of the family farm can have a significant effect on farm development decisions in the Australian context. See the attached article if it is of interest.

Dear Lisa, thank you very much.

Encouraging family farming becomes a very important development strategy for developing countries in view of the small and marginal size of farms, as these farms are severely constrained by increasing farming costs, including hired labour costs. Paid out costs for labour accounts for about 40-45% of the farming costs in Indian conditions irrespective of the crops grown. This then calls for a major organizational change in farming where more and more family members get involved in farming. How do we achieve this organizational change? Already farming population is shrinking and also becomes highly skewed towards higher age groups. Countries may get benefited from family farming if and only if more proportions of youth can be attracted to farming and for attracting the youth, we might have to ensure higher payoffs from family farming. To a large extent, the survival of family farms would depend on the efficiency of the market and the value chains in yielding attractive returns. It is important that markets become perfect and value chains get well integrated with the production, processing and marketing activities to make significant and sustainable impacts on the survival of the family farms. 

Dear Pozhamkandath, thank you very much.

I am believed that this method is very effective for supply agriculture production in climate change condition.