family agriculture

The farming is the task that consists of till and cultivate the land. Through these activities, food and various raw materials are obtained that allow the development of all kinds of products necessary for humans. Family, for its part, is that linked to family (the set of people who are related).

It is called family agriculture to the agricultural jobs that are developed by members of a family. This type of agriculture implies the use of labor from the family itself: that is, those who carry out the tasks are the members of the family nucleus, whether they are mens or women. In addition to agricultural production itself, among the activities that are included in this concept we must also take into account aquaculture, pastoral, fishing and forestry production.

According to various studies, family farming is usually the prevailing way of producing food, and this is true to the same extent in developing and developed countries, something that speaks of its effectiveness as an economic supporter. Families work the land together to offer their products to wholesalers, distributors or even directly to the consumer. This makes family farming a way of life for millions of people who focus their economy on farming.

Taking into account this social relevance, the Condition it must regulate the conditions linked to the development of family farming. It is imperative that government authorities guarantee access to land and markets, facilitate financing to improve productivity, and protect the environment to avoid the loss of natural resources.

The government should also allow groups of people who wish to engage in family farming the access to complementary natural resources to carry out sowing and harvesting tasks, among many others, but also to financing services to start and maintain their businesses, to the technology necessary for work and to any education or social insertion platform that improve your relationship with the rest of the population, so that choosing this path does not mean isolating yourself from the rest of society but rather becoming a defining actor in its economy.

It's important pointing that in some countries the state does not support family farming entrepreneurs as it should, with the attention and resources that it does devote to more traditional or larger-scale businesses, and this can have fatal consequences in situations such as floods or fires, both land private and neighboring ones, since a natural disaster can affect the conditions of the land and alter other factors, such as wind, in a negative way.

The growth of family farming contributes to fight hunger since these practices allow the subsistence of the people. As family farming grows, the socioeconomic situation of families improves. But it also has a positive impact on the cultural, environmental and socioeconomic level at a general level.

Such is the impact of family farming on the market, that the very United Nations declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, with the purpose of making this form of economy more visible and making people aware of its importance on issues such as poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity, but also to continue working towards objectives such as the protection and administration of natural resources and the environment, and the development of sustainable agricultural techniques.