Extreme Weather, Low Income Hurt Small-Scale Farmers

(Bloomberg) -- Small farmers who are key to world food output are producing and earning less as they face challenges to access land and financial services, the United Nations said.

That’s exacerbating food insecurity across the globe at a time when extreme weather is already hurting farm productivity, according to the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization in Rome. The world is also not on track to meet many goals for sustainable agriculture and natural resource management, the FAO said in a report on Thursday.

It’s critical that small-scale food farmers earn and produce more to reverse the trend of rising hunger, according to the agency. The FAO estimates that there are about 570 million farms worldwide, of which the majority are small. The report also said that small-scale producers account for as much as 85% of all food producers in some countries. It said on Monday that the number of undernourished people across the globe rose to more than 820 million in 2018, the highest level in eight years.

The FAO estimates that there are about 570 million farms worldwide, of which the majority are small farms. In some countries, small-scale producers account for as much as 85% of all food producers, it said.

“Productivity of small-scale producers is systematically lower on average than for larger food producers and, in most countries, the incomes of small-scale food producers are less than half those of larger food producers,” the FAO said.

Meanwhile, the global farming industry remains behind on several goals that would create sustainability in agriculture. This includes not having enough plant-genetic resources in conservation facilities and genetic diversity in livestock breeds.

Extinction Risk

On average, 60% of local livestock breeds are at risk of extinction in the 70 countries for which the UN had risk-status information, according to the FAO’s report.

“Ongoing efforts to preserve both plant and animal genetic resources appear inadequate given the unprecedented threat posed to their diversity by increasingly rapid environmental and social changes,” the report said. “Genetic diversity in live animal breeds is important to agriculture and food production because it enables livestock to be raised in various environments and to provide a wide range of products and services.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Denitsa Tsekova in New York at dtsekova@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Attwood at jattwood3@bloomberg.net, Pratish Narayanan, Millie Munshi

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