Hungry for Land: Small farmers feed the world with less than a quarter of all farmland

Governments and international agencies frequently boast that small farmers control the largest share of the world's agricultural land. Inaugurating 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, José Graziano da Silva, Director General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), sang the praises of family farmers but didn't once mention the need for land reform. Instead he stated that family farms already manage most of the world's farmland1 -- a whopping 70%, according to his team. 2 Another report published by various UN agencies in 2008 concluded that small farms occupy 60% of all arable land worldwide. 3 Other studies have come to similar conclusions.