Five out of six farms in the world are less than two hectares, they cultivate only 12% of all agricultural land, but produce about 35% of the world's food. This is stated in a study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

The contribution of smallholders to food supply differs from country to country, with a share of 80% in China and small single digits in Brazil and Nigeria.

“It is imperative to avoid using the terms family farming and smallholder farming interchangeably. Most family farms are small, but some are large and some are even very large, ”said Marco Sánchez, Deputy Director of FAO's Agri-Food Economics Division.

In 2014, FAO reported that of the world's 570 million farms, 90% are family farms and produce about 80% of the world's food.

The updated estimates show that there are about 608 million family farms worldwide, which cover 70 to 80% of the world's agricultural land and produce about 80% of the world's food in value terms. About 70% of all farms, which occupy only 7% of all agricultural land, are less than 1 hectare. Another 14% of farms that cultivate 4% of the land are in the range from 1 to 2 hectares, and only 10% of all farms covering 6% of the land are in the area from 2 to 5 hectares.

The largest farms with more than 50 hectares, accounting for 1% of all farms in the world, manage more than 70% of agricultural land, with almost 40% of agricultural land owned by farms of more than 1,000 hectares.

Farm sizes typically increase with average national income: 99% of farms in high-income countries are larger than 5 hectares, compared with 28% in low-income countries.

FAO believes that knowledge of farm structure is important for policymakers seeking to develop public policies and investments in support of family farming to increase the productivity of smallholders and improve rural livelihoods.

Additionally. On April 21, the Cabinet of Ministers increased the budget subsidy for small farms from UAH 3,000 to UAH 5,000 per hectare of cultivated land (but not more than UAH 100,000 per farm); subsidy.

The Cabinet of Ministers approved the bill "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on the Consolidation of Lands," MP and Permanent Representative of the CMU in the Verkhovna Rada Vasily Mokan said.

According to him, "it is proposed to improve the legal regulation of relations on land consolidation by defining the organizational and legal foundations of consolidation, the grounds, methods and procedure for carrying out the consolidation."

A source