Few farms, fewer farmers
THE VOCATION of agriculture is undergoing a civilisational change. The number of farms in the world is declining, while the farm size is increasing. Does this imply consolidation of farming in the hands of a few?
Some 12,000 years ago, when settled agriculture began, it was a need-based activity. Today, it is a multi-trillion dollar enterprise with 600 million farms feeding the world's 8 billion people. But this vocation is fast undergoing a change. Recently a researcher from the University of Colorado Boulder, US, analysed the number and size of farms in 180 countries from 1969 to 2013, and used the trends to forecast the situation in 2100. The study, published in Nature Sustainability, found that by 2100, the number of farms in the world would halve while the size of farms would double. In the US and Western Europe, this trend has been observed for decades. “Early 20th century agriculture was labour intensive, and it took place on many small, diversified farms in rural areas where more than half the U.S. population lived. Agricultural production in the 21st century, on the other hand, is concentrated on a smaller number of large, specialized farms in rural areas where less than a fourth of the U.S. population lives,” says the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture. Number of farms in the US has been declining since 1982—from 2.20 million in 2007 to 2 million in 2022. The average farm size, however, increased from 176 hectares (ha) in the 1970s to 178 ha in 2022.
The University of Colorado Boulder study forecasts that farm creation will stop and consolidation will set in by 2050 in Asia, West Asia, North Africa, Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, while sub-Saharan Africa will witness the change towards the end of the 21st century. In these regions, agriculture is the dominant employer with the majority of the farmers being small landholders. Even if the farm number remains unchanged, the study warns, fewer people will own land and farms.
There are three key consequences of this change. One, consolidation of farming in the hands of a few, probably big corporations or powerful individuals. Two, large farms mean a rise in monoculture farming and reduction in crop diversity, which will impact overall food and nutrition security. Three, the sector will be more susceptible to risks. “If you’re investing in today’s food systems with around 600 million farms in the world, your portfolio is pretty diverse. If there’s damage to one farm, it’s likely that the impact to your portfolio will be averaged out with the success of another. But if you decrease the number of farms and increase their size, the effect of that shock on your portfolio is going to increase. You’re carrying more risk,” Zia Mehrabi, the author of the study, was quoted in a newspaper. For a country like India (and for that matter most other poor and developing countries in Asia, Africa and North America), this is a change that we never imagined, and thus, are not prepared for the consequences. For instance, the number of operational farm holdings in India has been increasing—from 71 million landholdings in 1971, it has fragmented into 146.5 million holdings, according to the latest Agriculture Census 2015-16. This small size of landholdings is the chief cause of low crop yields and explains the unilateral focus of agri-policies to boost productivity. This must change once India starts reflecting the global trend.
The fact is that agriculture still contributes significantly to the economies of poor and developing countries. In India, agriculture's capacity to reduce poverty (and hunger) has been much more than that of sectors like services and industry. So the big questions are: if agriculture gets consolidated in the hands of a few, will the non-farm sectors be able to absorb the millions moving out of the farm sector? Will the few producers then also control our food and nutrition security? @richiemaha
Will the few producers, controlling our farms, also control our food and nutrition security?