Small farms, small food businesses and sustainable food security (SALSA) Policy Brief: Southern Europe

SALSA is an EU Horizon 2020 project that set out to assess the current and future role of small farms and related small food businesses (suppliers, processors, distributors) in achieving sustainable Food and Nutrition Security (FNS). SALSA studied small farms in 30 reference regions in 20 countries - 25 regions (at the so-called NUTS3 administrative level) in Europe and 5 regions in Africa. 
Research was conducted in 10 regions (NUTS3 level) of 5 Southern European (SE) countries – France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece. The number of small farms varies from country-to-country, but throughout Southern Europe they are consistently found to be strategic players in the regional food systems studied by the SALSA project.
Small farms in SE countries tend to be ‘exportoriented’. In other words, although they produce a large proportion of the studied food items at regional level, a great share of this production is often not consumed within the region but is exported outside of the region. Not surprisingly, small farms in Southern Europe are especially important as producers of fruits, vegetables and olive oil for the European market and they rely heavily upon formal cooperative structures to facilitate access to these markets. 
Although small farms are mainly export-oriented, for some products the total production from small farms at regional level is so large and diverse that if it were to stay in the region it has the potential to totally supply the regional demand for food.