To illustrate this challenge, I apply several potential definitions to farms I worked with in The Gambia. Why Defining Small-scale Producers Is Difficult (Note, we prefer the term small-scale producer (SSP), to smallholder because it is more inclusive of different agricultural livelihoods and does not imply land tenure as many farmers rent or lease land).
In the second post we look at some tools EPAR has developed to better define small-scale producer households. This first of two blogs posts explains why this seemingly intuitive household is difficult to pin down, both conceptually, and by the literature. Yet, this image includes several indicators which are not always correlated and the world often presents greater heterogeneity than we might anticipate a priori. Intuitively, you might picture a farming family with a small plot of land, and a few livestock, living primarily off of what they grow with their own labor, selling any excess on the side, likely living under the poverty line. Imprecise definitions risk failing to target the vulnerable farmers who actually need development interventions or who could catalyze agricultural transformation. The idea of working with small-scale producers, also known as small-scale farmers, is ubiquitous in the development literature, so much so that the term made it into SDG target 2.3: “By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers…” However, an exact definition of what is meant by a small-scale producer remains elusive.
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