Smallholder farmers in India: food security and agricultural policy

Smallholder farmers in India: food security and agricultural policy

Year of publication 2002

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 60

Product type Book (stand-alone)

Series title RAP Publication

Series number 1020-6221|1014-2789|18194591|0428-9560

Edition 1

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) The average size of nearly 80 percent of India’s over 106 million farm holdings in the early 1990s was less than 2 hectares. Covering only 33 percent of the total cultivated land in the country, these farms produced 41 percent of the nation’s food grain harvest – up from their contribution of 28 percent in 1971. This document analyses national farm census data between 1971 and the latest available estimate for 1991 to highlight the growing role of the country’s small farms in national food produ ction. Ironically, smallholder farmers form the bulk of India’s over 200 million hungry and poor people today. This points to the urgent need for reversing the decline in public investment in agriculture, while strengthening agrarian reform, infrastructure and institutions, creating off-farm employment and using size and scale-neutral technologies to boost crop and livestock production on small farms. The authors recommend safety nets as well as government initiatives in the international arena to ensure a fair deal to the country’s small farmers.

Language English

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One of the agricultural pathways towards sustainable food and nutrition security is through local production of nutritious food, activity in which smallholder farmers play a crucial role. As food consumers, all rural and urban people in developing countries count heavily on the efficiency of their local smallholder farmers to satisfy their food needs. The purpose of this paper is to provide background information on the potential role smallholder farmers in sustainable food and nutrition securit y; The paper identifies and synthesizes key literature concerning the effectiveness of smallscale agricultural interventions in improving nutrition outcomes and highlight some national and international policy recommendations aiming at improving the productivity of smallholder farming systems with the objective of ensuring food and nutrition security. The overall objective of the paper is to contribute to the ‘nutrition-enhancing agriculture and food systems’ organized by FAO’s Food Security and Nutrition team in the framework of the ICN2 process.
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