Providing Food Security Through the Smallholder Farm Concept

In my work in the international hunger space over the past two decades, I discovered the important role that supporting smallholder farmers had to do with ending hunger and providing food security. A smallholder farmer is defined as someone farming on five to 10 acres of land, and there are more than 570 million smallholder farmers who provide about one-third of the global food supply. I personally know many of them through the work I have done in Central and South America as well as various parts of Africa. More than half of them are women and most of the work is done with either animal-powered equipment such as a team of oxen pulling a single-bottom plow or hand-held equipment like a hoe or scythe. Most of these farmers are the poorest of the poor. Read More