Hi everyone, Once again, a summary - this time on Topic #2 - Small farms’ contribution to resilience of the food system Q2.1/3 - Question "2.1. What are the ways that small farms contribute to the resilience of the food system in your region? Please provide examples." From: Olga Moreno Perez <[log in to unmask]> (Spain) I am Olga Moreno from the SALSA Project. Our study region is the province of Castellón (NUT3), located in the Mediterranean coast of Spain. What we have found about the contribution of small farms to the resilience of the food system in Castellón is the existence of kitchen gardens in nearly all the small holdings – gardens that are not necessarily found in big farms. In these kitchen gardens, the farm families produce diverse fruits and vegetables. Interestingly, these products are not only produced for self-consumption, but they are also distributed among the enlarged family members. This is an informal, non-market way to contribute to the resilience of the food system in this region (particularly taking into consideration that fruits and vegetables have a high nutritional value). ___________________ Q2.2/4 - Question "2.2 Have small farms been more resilient compared to large farms in your region? What were the main factors that determined their resilience? Please provide examples." 1/ From: Sandra Š?mane <[log in to unmask]> (Latvia) Together with ongoing concentration of agricultural production in Latvia, the number of farms is decreasing. According statistics, the sharpest decline is in the number of smallest farms, which suggests they are the most vulnerable. Indeed, during previous couple of decades, market and regulatory conditions – prioritizing production efficiency over other elements and outputs of food system – have been less advantageous for small farms. Small farms are said to be economically inefficient to compete in the market and to provide farming families with sufficient income, livelihoods. On the other hand, a majority of small farms have shown resilience and many of them are even successfully developing. Their resilience factors are various; there is no one common answer for all cases. Among the critical ones we can name: - mobilising and relying "on your own", farms' and local community resources (like, using neighbours’ or relatives’ labour, relying on local farmer knowledge, borrowing neighbour’s machinery, using farm’s natural resources for production inputs), - developing individual market channels (small farms are poorly involved in conventional food chains and they are practicing various forms of direct individual selling: on farm, farm shop or stand, delivering to clients’ places, on the internet, also on farmer markets), - diversifying on-farm economic activities (like, artisanal processing, tourism), - diversifying production or specialising in other cases, keeping the ability to switch enough rapidly from one agricultural branch to another. 2/ From: Olga Moreno Perez <[log in to unmask]> (Spain) There is not a simple answer to this question for our study case (the province of Castellón, Spain). In this region, small farms are resilient basically because nearly all of them are held by part-time farmers who have another main gainful activity. Small farms are therefore sustained by non-agricultural income, as they do not provide enough income to live on. In spite of that, small farms are threatened by a serious crisis of the traditional coops of the region, of which small farmers are members (particularly coops that stockpile citrus fruits, which is an outstanding product in the coastal area of the region). Many of these coops are struggling with the competition of private traders. Farmers are more and more often signing contracts with private traders, in a process of vertical integration. In addition, coops have more difficulties selling the products at a good price because they accept all the production of their members – regardless its quality – , meanwhile private traders only accept the high-quality citrus fruits. The coops’ disappearance has a high impact in their membership - many small, part-time farmers - and could led to the abandonment of small plots of land. ___________________ Q2.3/3 - Question "2.3 What examples can you share where having more diverse product ranges and diverse channels have contributed to the resilience of small farms.” From: Viviane CdV <[log in to unmask]> (Italy) (Moderator: Although Viviane submitted this as input on topic #5, I think it is an interesting perspective for topic #2, so I took the liberty of including it here) In Italy, we have big farms, medium farms, small farms and micro farms. For the State, a "micro farm” means a maximum of 26 people are working on the same farm. However, in my example, I am talking of family farms of 4 people. In our case, we grow vegetables, livestock (for goat cheese), poultry, snails, honey, roses, herbs and amazing flower food in a small quantities. Other small farms also grow potatoes, vegetables (prices are good), cows for milk (prices are very low because of multinational supermarkets). In Italy, as a small farmer, you can produce and sell your crops directly from your farm and local markets, quite freely. But you want to sell further, e.g. in the two neighbouring provinces, you need to join the Commercial Chamber of Agriculture, and that costs, but you get access to financing from EU. But that point our small farms have to cope with taxes, pension fees... (Moderator: this example shows an increased resilience for small farms, through diversification of the product range, but also shows challenges if the small farmers want to market these produce themselves, beyond their immediate geographic location) ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the SMALL-FARMS-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.fao.org/scripts/wa-fao.exe?SUBED1=SMALL-FARMS-L&A=1