Peasant Family Farming Research Articles

Family Farmers as Agents in the Struggle for Survival: A Case Study from Turkey☆

AbstractThis paper discusses the survival strategies of small family farms in a western Anatolian village in the context of ongoing debates in the current literature concerning the future of small or peasant family farms under the conditions of the neoliberal era. The main argument of the paper is that even though the neoliberal agrarian policies in Turkey put into effect since the early 1980s have divested farmers of much of the protective policies in force in earlier periods—thereby putting them under much severe market pressures—other pressure mechanisms in this case under investigation have a more central impact on their survival. These pressures are the patterns of social and cultural change that occur due to modernization, alongside regulations concerning access to land which the farmers seem to be able to counter by organizing and mobilizing their internal, material, and social resources, within cultural norms. The arguments presented are based on the analysis of empirical data collected through field work carried out in a village of farmers specializing and engaged in the production of dried figs. The study emphasizes the multi‐causal, multi‐layered, contingent, and hybrid nature of the question of survival for these villagers and argues that it should be evaluated as a process, rather than an outcome, with the villagers themselves as agents in this process.

Transformación del patrimonio biocultural en el archipiélago de Chiloé: Un Sistema Importante del Patrimonio Agrícola Mundial*

Peasant family farming is characterized by its resilience to change, although it is exposed to drivers of socio-environmental transformation. We study the historical and contemporary drivers of change that have influenced the loss of biocultural heritage in the Rilán peninsula, a rural space in the Chiloe archipelago, in southern Chile that has been recognized by FAO as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS). Between September 2020 and October 2021, through a literature review, farm characterization sheets, and semi-structured interviews, eighteen family farms were visited, and individual conversations were held with a local historian and a rural extensionist in the agricultural field. The results show that, in the Chiloe archipelago, family farming continues to be a fundamental activity in terms of both identity and production, where, despite the changes in rural lifestyles in recent decades, a broad complex of knowledge, practices, and beliefs persists that have withstood rapid processes of agricultural modernization and multiple territorial transformations.

Community agroecology. Basis for food resilience in the face of extreme events

The transition towards a decentralized and diversified agriculture is analyzed, as a response to the economic crisis unleashed in Cuba since the 90s, with greater prominence by the peasant family farming and urban agriculture movements. It is evident that agroecology has become popular in human settlements, facilitating the participation of the population in the development of small-area production systems (intensive gardens, organoponic gardens, plots, docks and farms), where they obtain more than 40 fresh products that are consumed in their own communities

Impacts of land grabbing and agribusiness on peasant family farming in the province of Los Ríos – Ecuador

Land grabbing and agribusiness have generated serious implications for the sustainability of peasant communities in the global south. This paper analyzes perceptions of the impact of land grabbing and agribusiness on peasant family farming in three cantons of Los Ríos Province in Ecuador, using focus groups in 2020. The sustainable development framework and content analysis using NVIVO12 software were used. In the territories, negative impacts were mostly identified that seriously compromise their sustainable development, given that monocultures and the agribusiness production system have had strong implications in deforestation, loss of biodiversity, contamination of natural resources, modification of the agricultural landscape, and farmers’ health.
 Keywords: land grabbing, peasants, agribusiness.
 Resumen
 El acaparamiento de tierras y los agronegocios han generado serias implicaciones en la sostenibilidad de comunidades campesinas del sur global. En este artículo se analizan las percepciones del impacto del acaparamiento de tierras y los agronegocios en la agricultura familiar campesina en tres cantones de la Provincia de Los Ríos en Ecuador, aplicando grupos focales en el 2020. Se empleó el marco del desarrollo sostenible y el análisis de contenidos mediante el software NVIVO12. En los territorios se identificaron mayoritariamente impactos negativos que comprometen seriamente su desarrollo sostenible, dado que los monocultivos, sistema de producción de los agronegocios, han tenido fuertes implicaciones en la deforestación, pérdida de biodiversidad, contaminación de recursos naturales, modificación paisaje agrícola y salud de los agricultores.
 Palabras Clave: acaparamiento de tierras, campesinos, agronegocios.

Peasant family farming as an alternative to industrial agriculture: Implications for maternal and child health in Paraguay.

Peasant family farming as an alternative to industrial agriculture: Implications for maternal and child health in Paraguay.

Diagnosis of the peasant family farming system and its contribution to the food security of a peasant family in the San Antonio de Atenas village, Florencia, Caquetá

This paper reflects on the potential of agricultural practices that employ peasant family farming to satisfy inherent needs to enjoy a healthy, vital and prosperous life in the face of problems such as climate change, inequity, inaccessibility, poor food, among others. An investigation was carried out with a peasant family that develops agricultural activities on their rural property with the objective of identifying the contribution of peasant family agriculture to their food security. The study was carried out in the department of Caquetá, in the municipality of Florencia, Orteguaza district, San Antonio de Atenas village, La Cabaña plot, with the Farfán Muños family. For this, a qualitative interview was carried out in which the productive history, the agricultural activities that they carry out and the practices used were known; A characterization of their productive activities was carried out, emphasizing the forms of production, the benefits of good practices to produce and their accessibility to food. The results obtained show that the agricultural activities carried out by the Farfán peasant family contribute and benefit their food security and provide economic satisfaction. It was known that they have affordable access to food, most of it of good quality produced by themselves organically and have food stability in any period to satisfy their nutritional needs, it was possible to evidence the ties of family union, neighborhood solidarity and future projection.

Socio-Environmental Controversies in Peasant Family Farming in Chile’s Ñuble Region

Analysis of the discourse on socio-environmental controversies among peasant family farmers in the Ñuble region of south-central Chile—small organic producers, conventional small producers, agroecological producers, and members of peasant unions—allows the identification of their positions on the controversy between alternatives to development and alternative development. Un análisis del discurso sobre las controversias socioambientales que existen entre las familias campesinas en la región de Ñuble, en el centro-sur de Chile (pequeños productores orgánicos, pequeños productores convencionales, productores agroecológicos y miembros de sindicatos campesinos) permite identificar sus posturas en torno a la polémica entre alternativas al desarrollo y el desarrollo alternativo.

A luta pela terra e as políticas públicas territoriais no espaço agrário amazônico: uma reflexão a partir do assentamento Mártires de Abril em Belém

This article aims to discuss public management and peasantry in the Amazon and its importance to Brazilian society as well as the struggle for land and the impacts of social movements in the construction and occupation of territories. Using as object of research the settlement martyrs of April located in Mosqueiro in the municipality of Belém that represents a relevant perspective for agrarian reform pointing out the main difficulties of the settlement against the lack of power To peasant family farming. The aim of this research is to discuss the need for greater public power investments in the family farming sector, which is increasingly shown as the main food producer for the Brazilian population, in addition to discussing throughout this text the Importance of settlements for the implementation of agrarian reform.

Peasant Farming in the Southern Tracts of the Amazon: the Reluctant Alterity of Agribusiness

Abstract This article examines the main tendencies and perspectives of peasant family farming (PFF) in agricultural frontiers such as the Amazon. The ontological features of PFF are discussed, in particular the multiple associations with, and subsumption to, agribusiness. Due to national politico-economic pressures, the Amazon was reinvented half a century ago as a vibrant agricultural frontier that attracted a vast contingent of migrants due to coordinated government plans and, in more recent years, the cultivation of export-oriented crops. One very intriguing feature of this dynamic geography is that small family farming represents the Other of capitalist agriculture, but it functions as a hesitant form of alterity that both resists and fulfils agribusiness.

Assessment of Antimicrobial and Pesticide Residues in Food Products Sourced from Peasant Family Farming in Chile

The presence of antimicrobial and pesticide residues in products sourced from peasant family farms selected from eight regions of Chile was determined. A total of 204 samples were analyzed from family farm products, including honey, lettuce, tomato, strawberry, raspberry, lamb meat, and cow's milk. Pesticide residues were found in 43 of 107 samples tested for them, but only 4 samples had concentrations that exceeded the maximum residue limits (MRLs) set by Chilean regulations. As for animal products, 2 of 15 cow's milk samples tested positive for permethrin residues; however, these concentrations did not exceed Chilean MRLs. No pesticide residues were detected in honey samples. As for antimicrobial drugs, 4 of 14 lamb meat samples and 11 of 79 cow's milk samples tested positive for different classes of antimicrobial residues, such as tetracyclines, macrolides, aminoglycosides, and β-lactams. Among these, only three samples exceeded the MRLs for these matrices. Traces of tetracyclines and sulfonamides were detected in 7 of 29 honey samples. These findings show that these chemical contaminants are present in trace concentrations in foodstuffs produced by peasant family farms in Chile; however, most residues did not exceed the regulatory limits. This study is the first assessment of the presence of residues from antimicrobial drugs and pesticides in food products sourced from peasant family farms in Chile. Data about the current state of drug residues in this segment of food products provide a baseline for efforts to close possible gaps in current surveillance schemes.

Sustainability Assessment of Agricultural Systems in Paraguay: A Comparative Study Using FAO’s SAFA Framework

Sustainability is a topic that is at the center of current discussions in the political, economic, social, and environmental fields. For its analysis, an integral and multidisciplinary vision is needed. This work aims to assess the sustainability of agricultural systems in Paraguay through a comparison applying SAFA (Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems) indicators. The research focuses on 15 case studies on the territory of the Eastern Region of Paraguay divided into five classes of agricultural systems: agribusiness, conventional peasant family farming, agroecological peasant family farming, neo-rural farming, and indigenous agriculture. Data were collected through interviews with producers and key informants, direct observation, and scientific literature research in order to assess, through the SAFA Tool Software, the level of sustainability of each agricultural system as a whole and for each sustainability dimension (political, environmental, economic, and social dimension) in a comparative way. It has emerged that producers belonging to conventional peasant family farming, agroecological peasant family farming, neo-rural farming, and indigenous agriculture have achieved levels of sustainability that are similar to each other and very good in all four dimensions of sustainability. Meanwhile, agribusiness achieved moderate scores in the dimensions of governance and environmental integrity, and was good in the economic and social dimension.

Gender and generational patterns of African deagrarianization: Evolving labour and land allocation in smallholder peasant household farming, 1980–2015

Abstract This article traces smallholder peasant household production and reproduction trends against the background of profound change in African agriculture’s terms of trade between 1980 and 2015. The gender and generational dynamics of African peasant households, which evolved under European colonial policies from the late 19th century and largely persisted in the early post-independence era, were disrupted by the 1970s oil crises. By the 1980s, peasant labor displacement was gaining momentum, as evidenced by declining smallholder commercial agriculture, often but not always accompanied by rural out-migration. Ensuing differentiated involvement of peasant smallholder family members in unfolding processes of deagrarianization and depeasantization are explored on the basis of statistical data and qualitative case studies. The article’s broad spatial focus and 35-year overview are accommodated in a human geography methodology, which synthesizes multi-disciplinary social scientists’ research findings on the gender/age division of labor, allocation of decision-making power and welfare provisioning patterns within smallholder households. Spatial and temporal analysis of sex/age ratios derived from published data on sectoral labour force participation, quantitative surveys of intra-household labour time allocation and national census population data provide insight into the differential effects of deagrarianization on household members. Salient trends are: labor contraction in male commercial peasant family farming, smallholder subsistence-based land cultivation squeezed by medium-scale commercial farmers, female resource control and labor autonomy continuing to be impinged by male patriarchal attitudes, and an emerging tendency for “older women left behind” in the countryside, who provide an agrarian fallback for returned migrant family members and other members engaged in local non-agricultural occupations needing subsistence food support.

Cambio estructural de la vocación agrícola y pecuaria en el municipio de Purificación, Tolima, Colombia

En el municipio de Purificación, Tolima, Colombia, las economías basadas en el monocultivo del arroz y la explotación de hidrocarburos son los principales renglones de las actividades productivas. Este modelo extractivista ha generado un cambio abrupto en el uso y tenencia de la tierra; en los modos de vida de las comunidades y en las transformaciones de las relaciones sociales de este territorio. Además, el conflicto social y armado colombiano se constituyó en uno de los escenarios del despojo sistemático de la tierra. Metodológicamente, se analiza críticamente la Visión 2025 del departamento del Tolima, contrastándola con las mejores prácticas de la literatura y con observaciones en la zona, para desarrollar una postura crítica desde la perspectiva de las comunidades y la sociedad. Se pudo visibilizar el progresivo cambio estructural de la vocación agrícola y pecuaria de una agricultura familiar campesina a un modelo de economía extractivista. Se concluye que el acaparamiento de la tierra se constituye en un verdadero obstáculo para la pervivencia de las economías campesinas y sus modos de vida, su cultura y sus procesos identitarios ligados al uso comunitario de la tierra. Pese a la existencia de políticas públicas enfocadas al desarrollo de las comunidades rurales y cuidado de los ecosistemas, los entes territoriales están lejos de lograr dar respuesta a la gravísima situación de las comunidades rurales. La actual configuración del uso y tenencia de la tierra en el municipio de Purificación, permite comprender lo inicuas que han sido las políticas públicas en el campo colombiano.

On the Revitalization of the Russian Agro-Industrial and Agro-Food Markets

This article considers the revitalization of Russian agriculture and the major obstacles to expanding agro-industrial production, including the absence of centralized, regulated markets, insufficient effective demand, and the absence of comprehensive development strategies for land use, education, and regional cooperation. It is argued that instead of attempting to further urbanize the population, the government should invest in regional programs to help rural residents develop local communities, start small businesses, and improve the standard of living. This article examines the role small businesses (e.g., peasant family farms) play in rural communities, and argues for a number of measures needed to foster their development, including tax reform and price regulation. Such a policy would reinforce agricultural production and stimulate effective demand, thereby improving the lives of rural residents and the economy as a whole.

Identification of small agricultural producers: European experience for Ukraine

One of the areas of improvement of state agrarian policy in Ukraine is increasing support for small farms. However, there is still no common position on the division of agricultural producers by economic size. For identifying it, it seems appropriate to take into account the practice of the European Union, where the typology of farms uses the indicator of economic size. It is based on the economic parameter of Standard Output (SO) and describes the possible value of production that the producer is able to get, with the available productive capacity and conducting business in a particular region. The economic size of farms is determined based on their acreage and number of animals using regional SO ratios, which are calculated in the EU by relevant authorities. The farms are classified by economic size in 14 classes ranging from less than 2 thousand Euros to more than 3 mln Euros. Within the system, there are groups of small, medium and large farms. Ukraine needs to adopt the European approach to assessing the size of the farms, in which the group of small sized farms would include individual farms (households), peasant family farms and small sized economically independent farms. It is necessary to immediately start to build a national system of determination of farm size in terms of the economic parameter of Standard Output. During the transition period, it is expedient to temporarily assess the economic value of farms using an indicator as close as possible to the SO.

Beekeeping and Agroecological Systems for Endogenous Sustainable Development

This article examines the process of agroecological research on beekeeping systems, developed jointly by the Temperate Agriculture Program of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company (EMBRAPA), and the Institute of Sociology and Peasant Studies (ISEC), of the University of Córdoba. The investigation was carried out on different beekeeping experiences in southern Brazil: peasant family farms, settlements of agrarian reform, and Afro-descent quilombola and Guarani indigenous villages. The systems are managed in the contexts of agroecological farming and include “Africanized honeybees” and native “stingless bees,” integrated among trees and crops. We show that the dynamics of investigation that follows the guidelines presented by family farmers and traditional people contribute to their empowerment and to changing their own reality, favoring endogenous development and the dialogue of knowledge. The participatory experiences by ISEC and EMBRAPA Temperate Agriculture through the organization and mobilization of farmers and traditional people generated organizational structures that build local food systems. This joint initiative contributes to peasants’ search for autonomy and food sovereignty, and strengthens the reproduction of this work toward the political dimension of agroecology.

“家庭农场”是中国农业的发展出路吗？

Early in 2013 China’s Party Central sounded the call for developing so-called “family farms.” A great deal of discussion ensued, in which the dominant view has been to call for developing scale economies in “family farming” through greatly increased transfers of land, in the belief that large-scale farms would help raise both labor and land productivity. The slogan used, “family farms,” is borrowed from American rhetoric and reflects the way American agriculture is mistakenly imagined by many people. This article demonstrates that such a vision runs counter to the logic shown by the history of agricultural modernization throughout the world. It mistakenly tries to force China’s reality of “lots of people and little land” into an American model predicated on its opposite of “lots of land and few people,” and it mistakenly tries to apply economic concepts based on the industrial machine age to agriculture. The vision/policy is also based on a misunderstanding of the realities of contemporary American agriculture, which has long since come to be dominated by agribusiness. The determinative logic in American agricultural modernization has been to economize on labor, in contrast to the path of modernizing development that has already taken hold in practice in Chinese agriculture of the past 30 years, in which the dominant logic has been to save on land, not labor, in what I term “labor and capital dual intensifying” “small and fine” agriculture. The American “big and coarse” “model” is in reality utterly inappropriate for Chinese agriculture. It also runs counter to the insights of the deep and weighty tradition of scholarship and theorizing about genuine peasant family farming. The correct path for Chinese agricultural development is the appropriately scaled, “small and fine” genuine family farms that have already arisen quite widely in the past 30 years.This article is in English.中共中央于2013年年初提出要发展“家庭农场”，之后全国讨论沸沸扬扬，其中的主流意见特别强调推进家庭农场的规模化，提倡土地的大量流转，以为借此可以同时提高劳动和土地生产率。其所用的口号“家庭农场”是来自美国的修辞，背后是对美国农业的想象。本文论证，这是个不符合世界农业经济史所展示的农业现代化经济逻辑的设想，它错误地试图硬套“地多人少”的美国模式于“人多地少”的中国，错误地使用来自机器时代的经济学于农业，亟需改正。它也是对当今早已由企业型大农场主宰的美国农业经济实际的误解。美国农业现代化模式的主导逻辑是节省劳动力，而中国过去三十年来已经走出来的“劳动和资本双密集化”小而精模式的关键则在节省土地。美国模式不符合当前中国农业的实际，更不符合具有厚重传统的关于真正的小农经济家庭农场的理论洞见。中国近30年来已经相当广泛兴起的适度“小而精”规模的真正家庭农场才是中国农业正确的发展出路。

Paraguay and the expansion of Brazilian and Argentinian agribusiness frontiers

Over three decades, land concentration and “foreignisation” in Paraguay has accelerated the modernisation of agricultural production, affecting the ability of peasant and indigenous groups engaged in food-crop-oriented, family farming to maintain and gain access to land. This exclusion is most striking in areas where foreign investment is concentrated. Difficulties harmonising peasant family farming and the larger-scale capitalist agriculture have resulted in more disputes and conflicts. Foreign investment is led by Brazilian and Argentinian interests, but the Southern Cone, as a regionalised agricultural export platform, attracts private investment from other countries. Brazil's government is not yet a direct investor, but it provides significant technical support for the land deals and the production systems. Depuis trois décennies au Paraguay, la concentration de la propriété de la terre et son passage dans des mains étrangères ont accéléré la modernisation de la production agricole et, du coup, limité la capacité des paysans et des indigènes exerçant une agriculture familiale centrée sur la production alimentaire de conserver leurs terres ou d'avoir accès à la terre. Cette exclusion est plus frappante dans les régions où sont concentrés les investissements étrangers. La difficile cohabitation entre les exploitations agricoles familiales et l'agriculture capitaliste à grande échelle provoque de plus en plus de conflits. Les investissements étrangers sont principalement le fait d'intérêts brésiliens et argentins, mais le Cône sud en tant que plateforme régionale d'exportation agricole attire également des investissements d'autres pays. Le gouvernement brésilien n'agit pas encore en tant qu'investisseur direct, mais il fournit aux investisseurs un soutien technique significatif en matière de transactions foncières et de systèmes de production.

Insights to the internal sphere of influence of peasant family farms in using biogas plants as part of sustainable development in rural areas of Germany

Within the last decade, the biogas branch has become an important economic sector in Germany. Many arguments are used to support a further and rapid expansion of local biogas plants in both quantity and capacity. They are centered on the potential of biogas plants for supporting rural sustainable development processes. On the other side, the national biogas praxis is accompanied by several unwelcome and partly severe side effects. This contrast has given rise to research on how to master the complex challenge of operating biogas plants as part of overall sustainable development processes in rural Germany. The research presented in this article is mainly based on the extended case study method. It gives insight into the respective actions and significance of family farms that proactively use and develop their internal sphere of influence. These farms do so by embracing deciding factors of action such as unfolding synergies, mobilizing endogenous resources, as well as sustaining continuous innovativeness. Furthermore, they make use of a farm’s capacity for self-regulation. The strategies of the surveyed family farms reflect a regrounding in a peasant type of agriculture - a development which has currently been observed as a worldwide repeasantization. Given Germany’s rapid decline of family farms over the past several decades, the future role of the farms in mastering the complex challenge of supporting overall sustainable development processes, e.g., with biogas plants as a technical link, is uncertain. Making use of current repeasantization processes for expanding the sustainable use of biogas plants is an approach which, to date, seems to be hardly noticed and considerably underestimated.

Implications of Child Labour for Agricultural Production, Productivity and food security in Cameroon

The farming system in Africa is characterized by small peasant family farms whose production and productivity depend on the participation of all members of the family including children. In Cameroon, as elsewhere in African production, the traditional agricultural sector is based on an impressive division of labour along gender and age lines. Farm operations such as clearing and hunting are carried out by men, while others such as planting and weeding are culturally assigned to women and children. A major postulate of these laws is that the rights of children are abused and their physical bodies exploited. This structure and organization of the African family farm have an impact on the family and food security in African countries. Since 1919, a number of milestones have been achieved in the fight against child labour. These include the 1999 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182), culminating in the establishment of the World Day Against Child Labour in 2002 (ILO, 2003:6). An empirical analysis of the family farm through a case study in Momo Division of the North West Province of Cameroon confirms that the productivity of food crop-based and cash crop-based agricultural enterprises using cocoyam and coffee as sample crops is greatly influenced by competing economic, social and cultural factors such as the crop itself, age and gender. A multistage random sampling technique was adopted in the selection of a sample of 120 farmers. The results show that farm size per family range from < 1.0 ha to 4.0 ha for cocoyam production with an average of 1.24 hectares, and from <1.0 ha to 7.0 hectares for coffee production with an average of 1.54 hectares. The main sources of labour on both enterprises were family, hired and exchange/communal. For the two crops approximately 46% women contributed to the total labour required as against 33% for men and 21 for children. Women (89.7%) were more engaged in hiring labour than men (66.4%). Farm operations that employed more children and women than men included land preparation, weeding, harvesting and marketing. Recommendations are made for further research particularly policy studies on food, agriculture and rural development within the context of food self sufficiency, food security and sustainable development. Key words : child labour, cocoyam, coffee, person days, gender, agricultural production and productivity, food security, and rural development