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The future of farming: Who will produce our food?

dc.contributor.authorGiller, K.
dc.contributor.authorDelaune, T.
dc.contributor.authorSilva, J.
dc.contributor.authorDescheemaeker, K.
dc.contributor.authorvan de Ven, G.
dc.contributor.authorSchut, A.G.T.
dc.contributor.authorvan Wijk, M.
dc.contributor.authorHammond, J.
dc.contributor.authorHochman, Z.
dc.contributor.authorTaulya, G.
dc.contributor.authorChikowo, R.
dc.contributor.authorNarayanan, S.
dc.contributor.authorKishore, A.
dc.contributor.authorBresciani, F.
dc.contributor.authorTeixeira, H.
dc.contributor.authorAndersson, J.A.
dc.contributor.authorvan Ittersum, M.K.
dc.date.accessioned2022-09-23T09:34:01Z
dc.date.available2022-09-23T09:34:01Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.identifier.citationGiller, K., Delaune, T., Silva, J., Descheemaeker, K., van de Ven, G., Schut, A.G.T., ... & van Ittersum, M.K. (2021). The future of farming: who will produce our food?. Food Security, 13, 1073–1099.
dc.identifier.issn1876-4517
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12478/7803
dc.description.abstractAchieving SDG2 (zero hunger) in a situation of rapid global population growth requires a continued focus on food production. Farming not merely needs to sustainably produce nutritious diets, but should also provide livelihoods for farmers, while retaining natural ecosystems and services. Rather than focusing on production principles, this article explores the interrelations between farms and farming systems in the global food system. Evaluating farming systems around the world, we reveal a bewildering diversity. While family farms predominate, these range in size from less than 0.1 ha to more than 10,000 ha, and from hand hoe use to machine-based cultivation, enabling one person to plant more than 500 ha in a day. Yet, farming in different parts of the world is highly interdependent, not least because prices paid for farm produce are largely determined by global markets. Furthermore, the economic viability of farming is a problem, globally. We highlight trends in major regions of the world and explore possible trajectories for the future and ask: Who are the farmers of the future? Changing patterns of land ownership, rental and exchange mean that the concept of ‘what is a farm’ becomes increasingly fluid. Next to declining employment and rural depopulation, we also foresee more environmentally-friendly, less external input dependent, regionalised production systems. This may require the reversal of a global trend towards increasing specialisation to a recoupling of arable and livestock farming, not least for the resilience it provides. It might also require a slow-down or reversal of the widespread trend of scale enlargement in agriculture. Next to this trend of scale enlargement, small farms persist in Asia: consolidation of farms proceeds at a snail’s pace in South-east Asia and 70% of farms in India are ‘ultra-small’ – less than 0.05 ha. Also in Africa, where we find smallholder farms are much smaller than often assumed (< 1 ha), farming households are often food insecure. A raft of pro-poor policies and investments are needed to stimulate small-scale agriculture as part of a broader focus on rural development to address persistent poverty and hunger. Smallholder farms will remain an important source of food and income, and a social safety net in absence of alternative livelihood security. But with limited possibilities for smallholders to ‘step-up’, the agricultural engine of growth appears to be broken. Smallholder agriculture cannot deliver the rate of economic growth currently assumed by many policy initiatives in Africa.
dc.description.sponsorshipInternational Fund for Agricultural Development
dc.format.extent1074-1099
dc.language.isoen
dc.subjectPopulation Growth
dc.subjectFood Security
dc.subjectYield Gap
dc.subjectSmallholders
dc.subjectFarms
dc.subjectSustainable Intensification
dc.titleThe future of farming: Who will produce our food?
dc.typeJournal Article
cg.contributor.crpRoots, Tubers and Bananas
cg.contributor.affiliationWageningen University and Research Centre
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Livestock Research Institute
cg.contributor.affiliationCommonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversity of Zimbabwe
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Institute of Tropical Agriculture
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Food Policy Research Institute
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Fund for Agricultural Development
cg.coverage.hubEastern Africa Hub
cg.researchthemeNatural Resource Management
cg.identifier.bibtexciteidGILLER:2021a
cg.isijournalISI Journal
cg.authorship.typesCGIAR and developing country institute
cg.iitasubjectAgronomy
cg.iitasubjectFood Security
cg.iitasubjectPlant Breeding
cg.iitasubjectPlant Production
cg.iitasubjectSmallholder Farmers
cg.journalFood Security
cg.notesPublished online: 03 Sep 2021
cg.accessibilitystatusOpen Access
cg.reviewstatusPeer Review
cg.usagerightslicenseCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 0.0)
cg.targetaudienceScientists
cg.identifier.doihttps://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12571-021-01184-6
cg.iitaauthor.identifierGodfrey Taulya: 0000-0002-5690-0492
cg.futureupdate.requiredNo
cg.identifier.volume13
cg.contributor.acknowledgementsWe are grateful to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for funding much of the data analysis as part of the Towards Inclusive, Sustainable, Nutritious and Efficient Food Systems project. We thank Leslie Lipper and Serge Savary for their insightful reviews and Bart de Steenhuijsen Piters for his comments on an earlier draft. KEG and MKvI thank the NWO-WOTRO Strategic Partnership NL-CGIAR for funding. JAA acknowledges funding from the CRP on Maize through CIMMYT’s ‘Rural livelihood-oriented research methodologies for social impact analyses of Sustainable Intensification interventions’ project. AK acknowledges support from ACIAR through the Sustainable Development Investment Portfolio (SDIP) programme. MKvI and JVS thank the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for funding the establishment of the Global Yield Gap Atlas. JH acknowledges funding from USAID Feed the Future-AfricaRISING Ethiopia and JH and MvW the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock.


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