What we count on them to produce
Smallholders feed the world, or are key to feeding it. We have said it for so long it has become the ground we stand on. It gives purpose to every small farm, every project, every intervention. It lends meaning to the effort. This we know.
For a long time, we took the size of their population—the global count of about two billion people—as a signal of their capacity to produce food. The number was repeated and passed on, long before the evidence was complete. The count tells us how many. The land behind it and what that land produces are now in view. This is Common Ground.
What the numbers now show
When we talk of smallholders, we use the global count. It includes those in the broad economies, although few in number and small in land share. China’s smallholders once numbered close to 200 million households, accounted for 98% of its farms, and farmed 80% of China’s farmland. Those farms held about two-fifths of global smallholder farmland and accounted for more than half of global smallholder production. This we now see.
We now also say that smallholder farms produce about 35 percent of the world’s food, including production from China’s smallholder farms some time ago. But smallholder poverty largely disappeared there some time ago. The smallholders we support are elsewhere, where their poverty persists. The global number continues to travel through the Questions of feeding the world. This we Question.
Among the smallholders we support, the count is closer to 250 million households and a billion people. The land behind that count is only about a tenth of the world’s farmland, with production roughly matching that share. Their number too is only about an eighth of the world’s population. A population of about an eighth of the world producing about a tenth of its food is a very different record from feeding the world. This we Question.
The two-hectare threshold we use to define smallholders is only a cap, and the 250 million households are counted together under it. Within that count, three-quarters of households are ultra-smallholders farming less than one hectare, most under half a hectare. Smallholder landholdings continue to fragment and shrink. This we now see.
These ultra-smallholders we support farm roughly half of smallholder land, about 6% of the world’s farmland. Their production at the low yields they harvest roughly follows that share: about 6% of the world’s food. This we now know.
Whose food security that land can carry
Even in the few economies where ultra-smallholders hold near half the total farmland, food insecurity remains widespread among them and the rest of the poor. The land held by households with one to two hectares—the smallholders who could potentially produce more—accounts for no more than a third in any economy, with their production also matching their land share. This we Question.
Ultra-smallholders, who make up the majority, often do not produce enough to feed themselves from their land, let alone their economies. Their plots are tiny and fragmented. They farm at low yields for sustenance. Even where their land could produce enough food for the household, putting all of it and their labor to that use has a cost. Land, labor, and time are still being allocated on the Production Possibilities Frontier (PPF). What we can do more of only by doing less of something else. When other work pays more, they seek income there. This we know.
Households with one to two hectares, who are fewer in number, could feed themselves and produce a surplus from their land. Their yields are low as well, much like those of ultra-smallholders and larger landholders nearby. They produce for income, and low returns keep them at the low-yield positions they choose on their PPFs. This we know.
Low yields similarly persist across ultra-smallholders, households with one to two hectares, and larger landholders above two hectares, with production by each tracking their land share. Each settles according to the income they see ahead on their PPF. The Average Yield Speaks for the Whole Economy. This is in the record.
How production is growing
We treat low yields as the problem to be solved, and rising production as proof of progress in feeding the world. Yet across the narrow economies where we work, farmers both small and large continue to bring more land into cultivation at low yields, and production is growing more through that expansion than through higher yields per unit of land. This we Question.
When income is in sight, yields rise per unit of land as farmers move on the PPF toward science’s potential. But in the narrow economies, little income is in sight to draw that movement. What moves yields, and what does not, comes into view. This we Question.
The story that goes on
Still, the story we inherited stays. We continue to say that smallholders feed the world, are key to feeding it, or versions of it that now travel through global food security, national food security, ending hunger, ending malnutrition, affordable healthy diets, resilient food systems, and feeding a growing population. This we do.
Their small share of farmland and food production is met with more knowledge hubs, digital tools, digital finance, group training and advisory, fertilizer manufacture, targeted product profiles, behavior design, sustainable seed systems, market access, and market coordination. But they arrive at the same old PPF, where the farmer still decides how much land, labor, time, and other factors are worth putting into production for the income expected ahead. This we Question.
The numbers were once unclear, and the story filled the space. Now the difference between story, land, yield, production, and food insecurity can be seen. The land they hold cannot carry all that we counted on it for. The smallholders whose own food security remains uncertain continue to carry the language of everyone else’s. This we Question.
So here is the Unquestion:
If the smallholders we support produce only a fraction of the world’s food, why do we continue to anchor global food security on their shoulders?
And if feeding the world is never within their land’s reach, what has to become visible first for them to feed and prosper on their own count?
The more we Unquestion, the more clarity we gain. The more we Unquestion now, the less future generations will have to.
We are not lost.
We simply avoid the turn.
Once we Unquestion, the direction is already clear.
Thank you for seeing.