The organisation of sector and multi-stakeholder consultations was an integral part of the first phase of the PAEPARD II programme, covering the period 2009–2013. These consultations contributed to the overall objective of the programme, the reorientation of scientific and technical collaboration between Africa and Europe in the area of agricultural research for development (ARD), in order to promote thecreation of multi-stakeholder partnerships that are demand-oriented and mutually beneficial.
L’organisation de consultations sectorielles et multiacteurs a fait partie intégrante de la première phase du programme PAEPARD II, qui a couvert la période 2009-2013. Ces consultations se sont inscrites dans l’objectif général du programme, soit la réorientation de la collaboration scientifique et technique entre l’Afrique et l’Europe dans le domaine de la Recherche agricole pour le développement (RAD) afin de favoriser la mise en place de partenariats multi-acteurs orientés vers la demande et mutuellement bénéfiques.
The project Small Farms, Small Food Business and Sustainable Food Security (SALSA) intends to assess the role of small farms and small food business in terms of food production and food security. One important first step in doing this is to test and develop methods and tools able to produce accurate and useful information about small farms.
This deliverable is a report of the work done in the framework of the Small Farms, Small Food Business and Sustainable Food Security (SALSA) project in task 2.3 of Work Package (WP2) as defined in the description of work (DOW) of the SALSA project. The title of the task according to the DOW is Task 2.3 - Small farms characterization in the reference regions.
It is clear that any definition of a small farm needs to be based on national and regional realities. Definitions involving only the criterion of farm size have universal appeal as they are relatively easy to apply and allow simple comparisons across countries and world regions. However, they don't capture all the complexities of farming. Definitions involving additional criteria to farm size are more meaningful, particularly those including indicators of the farm economic output, but data availability is often a limitation (Ruane, 2016).