Family farming: At the core of the world’s agricultural history

Abstract

The diversity of agriculture in the world reflects the immense variety of societies and natural environments on the planet. Indeed, agricultural systems range from various types of shifting slash-and-burn practices-sometimes very similar to those of the first sedentary human groups-to quasi-automated agricultures insome regions of the world. These systems present huge gaps in terms of modesof exploitation of natural resources, levels of capital use, productivity andmarket integration. They reflect various stages of transformation of agriculture depending on their technical level, their integration into globalized markets and the structural changes of national economies around the world. They also echo the transition from agrarian societies-organized around the relationships between rural communitiesand with their natural environment to predominantly urban ones characterizedbya high degree of division of labor, where agricultural production is increasingly implemented through processes of artificialization of cultivated areas and the industrialization of the food chain. And yet, in absolute terms, there have never been as many farmers globally as there are today.