Family farming makes up the majority of agricultural production globally. In Asia, 85% of farming land is worked on by family farms, which are typically small-scale and face challenges from issues like lack of access to markets, assets, seeds and technology as well as environmental changes. Major recommendations to support family farming in Asia include reforming land and policy frameworks, developing data on family farm structures, and enabling producer organizations and cooperatives. In India specifically, small family farms cultivate 86% of agricultural land but struggle with problems relating to land tenure, water access, credit, and climate change impacts. Cooperative models are seen as a way to help small farmers achieve economies of scale and bargaining power.

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Family Farming in Asia Sangmin Han
Senior Manager
NACF EU Office
21 October 2014
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2. Family farming includes all family-based agricultural activities and 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
labor, including both women’s and men’s.
More than 570 million farms in the world, of which 88% (i.e. 500 million) are
owned by families.
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Family Farming
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Responsible for at least 56% of agricultural production
Family farmers work on a significant portion of the world’s farming land,
regional averages are:
- 85% in Asia
- 62% in Africa, 83% in North & Central America, 18% in South America
and 68% in Europe

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Family Farming in Asia : small-scale
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4. Rapid Globalization of the food sector and threats from large-scale
commercial farming and industrial production
Environmental changes brought about by climate change, floods,
diseases and pests
Lack of support in accessing markets, assets, seeds and technology
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Major Challenges in Asia
Farmers drainage with rapid industrialization and aging farmers
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5. Reform the legal frameworks and policies on access to land, gender equity
and youth in agriculture
Develop country-specific data on family farming, including roles and
structures of producer organizations
Institutionalize national committees with meaningful multi-stakeholder
participation, especially by farmers organizations, co-operatives, consumers,
civil society and private sector
Establish enabling conditions for producer organizations and co-operatives
facilitating their access to policy-making processes, programmes and
incentives that allow them to thrive
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Recommendation by IYFF Regional Dialogue
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Develop a strong campaign to promote the IYFF

6. Women play a key role in family farms and hence programmes to address
gender inequity in agriculture will pay dividends in terms or improved food
security
Providing access to quality inputs, technology and services like extension,
credit and marketing will contribute to improving productivity of family farms
Value chain development and promotion of entrepreneurship will boost
economic viability of family farms
Promotion of global alliances for strengthening the potential of family farms to
address the zero hunger challenge
Providing family farmers with adequate financial and scientific support to
ensure food security should be the bottom line of all food and agricultural
policies of developing countires
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Recommendation by IYFF Regional Consultation
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7. FAO-ICAO Joint Conference of Family Farming in Bali
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coop

8. In India, family farming is refereed to small holder farming i.e. farming on
the farms having size of less than 2 ha and dependent mainly on family
members for carrying out most of the farming activities
Out of 138 million ha land holdings available in India, about 86% (i.e. 117
million ha) is owned and maintained by small holders
Contribute about 40 % of the total food production and 78% of the total
agricultural production
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Family Farming in India
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Family Farming in India (continue … )
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Challenges for family farming
Land and tenure security
- approx. 15 million farm families have no land
- tenure of leased land for farming is not fixed
- scope for land tenure security, land tenure reform
Fragmented Land Holdings
- size of land holding coming down due to bequeathing
- reduction in cultivable land
- wastage and inefficient use of costly farm inputs
Water Shortages
- dependence on rainfall & ground water
- unsustainable extraction of surface and ground water
- no access to irrigation water

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Challenges for family farming
Access to qualified farm inputs
- could not afford to buy high cost inputs like seed, fertilizers …
Low farm mechanization
- farm equipment and machinery not viable for small farms
Credit crunch & limited access to financial resources
- difficulty in accessing credit services
- dependence on private money lenders
Impacts of climate change
- increased temperature, water salinity, pest and disease attack
- shift in weather

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Challenges for family farming
Globalization challenges
- cannot take advantage of higher food prices being the small scale of operation
- cannot compete with the larger business firms
Limited access to markets
- poor access and control over market and market information
- weak bargaining power
Lack of recognition of women in farming
- contribution of women in farming undercounted
- agricultural policies and programmes not sensitive to their needs
Youths moving away from farming
- distracted by non-remunerative and non-profitable of farming
- interested employable in urban area

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Co-operative Farming
Due to globalization and entry of big retailers in India, contract farming is
becoming successful. Practiced by many private companies
However, benefit not reaching the small farmers, since small farms are not
preferred for contract farming due to high transaction costs.
Small farmers can get benefitted by organizing through co-operatives to do
co-operative farming
Co-operative Farming
- farmers pool their land or collectively take land on lease
- economies of scale in procuring farm input
- better bargaining power, better price realization of the produce
- can also integrate with contract farming by signing contract with private
companies

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Indian Farmers Fertiliser Co-operative. Ltd (ICAO member)
One of the prominent national level multi-state co-operative society of India
Largest producer and marketer of fertilizers in India
Have more than 39,000 member co-operative societies, out of which about
36,000 are small holders
IFFCO is playing a vital role in the development of small holder farming
and improving the lives of farmers in following ways :
- largely catering to the needs of fertilizers to small farmers
- promotional programmes & extension services
- save the soil campaign
- information & communication technology
- providing insurance facility
- providing warehousing & collateral management services
- providing access to commodity markets
- social and cultural benefit

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Family Faring in China
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Major Problems of Chinese Agriculture :
Farmer Drain : Migrant Workers
ex) 70% of registered farmers with age b/w 18 and 55 worked in the cities
(Wenshang County of Shandong Province, a typical agricultural area)
Aging
ex) 60-90% of farming work is done by people over 60
(Shanxi Province)
Land Abandonment : 5~10 % land abandoned through out the year
40~50% land abandoned seasonally
(Jiangxi Province)
Low scale Economy
- 0.61 ha/household (Nationwide), 0.22 ha/household (Zhejiang province)
Financial difficulties : lack of credit accessibility, high interest rate

15. Approach by All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives:
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Land Trusteeship
Total Trusteeship: give land to the cooperative and receive shared profit
- wholesale trust : with the guidance and recommendation from the village
council, a large number of farmers in a village entrust their land for a
reasonable long term to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative (SMC).
- pooling land : the fragmentary land are pooled together with industrialized
farming, management, harvest, processing and marketing
- share profits : The SMCs would bear the cost of land, and the profit from the
land were shared proportionally among farmers and SMCs with some
administration fee to the village council.

16. Approach by All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives:
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Partial Trusteeship:
- whole chain service : SMCs offer the whole range of paid service from the
land plowing, sowing, fertilization, harvest, processing and marketing for
farmers to choose voluntarily.
- minimum service level : Farmers who would like to join in the trusteeship
program, shall paid for a minimum level of service from the SMCs as decided
by the SMCs
- discounted price : Farmers in the trusteeship program received the service
and fertilizers at discounted price from the SMCs, compared with the market
price
* Monitor of Trusteeship by Village Council

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Common Principles of Trusteeship
- voluntary participation
- paid service
- shared risk
- shared profit
- extended assistance
Challenges of Trusteeship
- concern about the long-term stability of trusteeship
- farmers’ lack of risk sense and contract spirit
- lack of fund to upgrade machinery and technology

18.  The total number of agricultural management entities in Japan is 1,680,000, of
which 1,650,000 are family management entities, accounting for about 98%.
 While farm households have been decreasing, corporation management entities
have been increasing. This is one of structural changes oven time. However, in
terms of agricultural population, the center of Japanese agriculture is still family
farming.
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Family Farming in Japan
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Year
Number of
agricultural
management
entities
(thousand entities)
Family farmers Corporations
2005 2,009 1,981 28
2010 1,679 1,648 31
Up down (%) -16.4 -16.8 10.4
Percentage (%)
2005 100 98.6 1.4
2010 100 98.2 1.8

19.  In terms of agricultural output per management entity, corporation entities are generally larger in
scale: They are only 1.8% in number, but produce about 30% of total agricultural output.
 On the other hand, family management entities accounts for about 70% of the total agricultural
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output in spite of relatively small management scale.
 In terms of agricultural output, the central role of Japanese agriculture is played by family farmers.
Number of management bodies by sales amounts of agricultural products (2010)
Total
-1,000,000
1,000,000
-5,000,000
5,000,000
-10,000,000
10,000,000
-20,000,000
20,000,000
-100,000,000
100,000,000-
(Yen)
Agricultural management
body
1,679,084 989,202 442,557 114,342 74,995 52,411 5,577
Corporate 31,008 13,327 3,007 2,061 2,803 6,505 3,305
Family 1,648,076 975,875 439,550 112,281 72,192 45,906 2,272
Estimated agricultural output (2009, bn. yen/%)
Total Corporate management Percentage Family management Percentage
8,049.1 2,253.9 28 5,795.2 72

20. Family Farming Threatened by Aging and Decrease of Agricultural Population
 However, family farming in japan is faced with serious depopulation and aging. The
generation who has supported Japanese agriculture is now in the period of
replacement.
 Japanese agricultural population has decreased to a half during last 20 years: 4.8
million in 1990 to 2.6 million in 2010. The average age of agricultural population is
65.8 years old in 2010.
 50-60 thousand people have started farming in recent years, but it has not caught
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up with the speed of decrease.

21. Urgent task of training farmers who can ensure adequate incomes
 Decline of agricultural incomes is one of the causes of decrease of agricultural
population and stagnated increase of next generation who succeed farming or
newly engage in farming.
 Net agricultural production (cost subtracted from agricultural output) was in the
peak around 1990 and has been decreasing ever since. It has been decreasing by
almost 20% compared to 1990 per farm household.
 It is an urgent task to train farmers who can ensure enough incomes in order to
secure successors/new farmers and maintain and develop agriculture.
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22.  Today, JA Group promotes “Local Farming Vision” activity to envision and practice the future
image of local farming and lives with households or settlements getting together and leading
farmers and various types of farmers united.
 This activity aims for making better community through expansion of agricultural production and
improvement of farmers’ incomes by ensuring the individual roles of family farm management
and through discussion in the community.
 JA Group develops the nationwide activity to create communities where each person can play a
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role based on individual family farm management.
• Fund for Farm
Accumulation
• Fund for Youths’
Engagement in
Agriculture
etc.
Local farming vision
Clarification of management bodies of
leading farmers and farm accumulation
Various types of farmers playing their roles
Creation of production sites with local
characteristics
Creation of abundant communities through
agriculture
Political support from
administration/
government
Business/activity
support by JA
• Support for vision
planning
• Support for
accumulating farms
and business proposal
for leading farmers
• Organizing farming in
settlements
• Support for new
farmers
etc.

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For further information on country details
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Please contact the original presenters
India : Dr. Gopal Saxena, IFFCO gnsaxena@iffco.in
China : Mr. Li Shun, ACFSMC coopshun@qq.com
Japan : Mr. Maeda Kenki, JA-Zenchu maeda-kenki@zenchu-ja.or.jp
Thank you for your attention