The role of small farms in food security and their socio-cultural and environmental functions

The debate over small farm agriculture at both international and regional levels is witnessing a shift in attitude toward smallholder farming and peasant households; indeed, the new approach considers small farms as a major solution to poverty and hunger rather than their cause. However, small-scale agriculture is facing such escalating challenges as expanding economic interactions and competitions, market economy, demand-driven agriculture, and lower global prices of large-scale farm products so that its future has become a topic of much discussion among the global academic and policy-making circles. Advocates of small-scale agriculture, in contrast, argue for its functions in and positive impacts on food security, production efficiency, income promotion, and poverty alleviation as well as its environmental, social, and cultural benefits. The present paper will scrutinize each of these aspects. Among the measures proposed for promoting and re-establishing small-scale farming are included explication of distorted and ostensible policies raised against small-scale agriculture, social recognition of the practice, development of a market strategy for this type of farming, promotion of part-time farming, formulation of a remuneration system for ecosystem services, and provision of local public services supplied to such farmers.