Mountain Farming is Family Farming: A contribution from mountain areas to the International Year of Family Farming 2014

From a global perspective, mountain farming is family farming. Mountain areas, with their dispersed  patches of useable land at different altitudes with  different climates and with their often highly fragmented landscapes and narrow limits for mechanization, are most efficiently and effectively managed by family farms.

The growing attention to family farming presents an opportunity for mountain farmers to receive greater support and specific policy interventions. Family farming encompasses all the activities within the realms of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, pastoralism and aquaculture that are predominantly reliant on family labour. The General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming to recognize and support the contribution of family and smallholder farms to food security, poverty eradication and achieving the Millennium Development Goals.