Despite renewed interest in industrial
agriculture by investment banks and sovereign wealth funds, more than
80 percent of the world's food is still produced by family farmers,
according to new U.N. research published on Thursday.
More than 500
million family farms manage between 70 and 80 percent of the world's
agricultural land, the U.N.'s "The State of Food and Agriculture
2014" reported. Some analysts, however, worry that family farms
are under increasing pressure from speculators, as prices for land
rise due to a growing world population. Speculative capital is moving
into agriculture, threatening family farmers, said Devlin Kuyek, a
researcher with the international organisation GRAIN. "It's a
structural change, you have companies who weren't investing in
agriculture now jumping in: hedge funds, pension funds, different
elites and governments."
Only 1 percent of the world's farms are larger than 50
hectares, but this small group controls 65 percent of the world's
agricultural land, the FAO report said. Farms smaller than one
hectare account for 72 percent of all farms, but control only 8
percent of agricultural land.
"The highly skewed pattern of farm
sizes at the global level largely reflects the dominance of very
large farms in high-income and upper-middle-income countries and in
countries where extensive livestock grazing is a dominant part of the
agricultural system," the report said. "Land is somewhat
more evenly distributed in the low-and lower-middle-income
countries."
Small and medium sized farms tend to have higher
crop yields per hectare than larger operations, the report said
"because they manage resources and use labour more intensively".
Analysts worry that large agribusiness firms could undermine these
productivity trends on smaller farms. "A lot of the new players,
including hedge funds, don't have much of a track record on
agriculture," Kuyek said. "They are more interested in buying
land from small farmers and then flipping it to other investors when
prices rise."
Despite renewed interest in industrial agriculture by investment banks
and sovereign wealth funds, more than 80 percent of the world's food is
still produced by family farmers, according to new U.N. research
published on Thursday.
More than 500 million family farms manage between 70 and 80 percent of
the world's agricultural land, the U.N.'s "The State of Food and
Agriculture 2014" reported.
Some analysts, however, worry that family farms are under increasing
pressure from speculators, as prices for land rise due to a growing
world population.
Speculative capital is moving into agriculture, threatening family
farmers, said Devlin Kuyek, a researcher with the international
organisation GRAIN.
"It's a structural change, you have companies who weren't investing in
agriculture now jumping in: hedge funds, pension funds, different elites
and governments," Kuyek told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Only 1 percent of the world's farms are larger than 50 hectares, but
this small group controls 65 percent of the world's agricultural land,
the FAO report said.
Farms smaller than one hectare account for 72 percent of all farms, but
control only 8 percent of agricultural land.
"The highly skewed pattern of farm sizes at the global level largely
reflects the dominance of very large farms in high-income and
upper-middle-income countries and in countries where extensive livestock
grazing is a dominant part of the agricultural system," the report
said.
"Land is somewhat more evenly distributed in the low-and
lower-middle-income countries."
Small and medium sized farms tend to have higher crop yields per hectare
than larger operations, the report said "because they manage resources
and use labour more intensively".
Analysts worry that large agribusiness firms could undermine these
productivity trends on smaller farms.
"A lot of the new players, including hedge funds, don't have much of a
track record on agriculture," Kuyek said. They are more interested in
buying land from small farmers and then flipping it to other investors
when prices rise. - See more at:
http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/24073#sthash.TC4ABFBm.dpuf
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