Introduction

Abstract

The launch of the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) in 2014 by the United Nations had been anticipated in the context of the organisation’s reiterated concerns about ensuring global food safety and alleviating hunger and poverty worldwide. In turn, according to the UN’s demographic projections, the world’s population is to increase to 9 billion by 2050, implying the necessity to double the extent of agricultural production. Such an increase of production is likely to enlarge the pressure on arable land and the availability of water supplies, which would endanger the vision of sustainable farming and development in general. However, the predictions that, in the context of the global market economy, industrialised farming organised in a corporate form would replace family-run farming have failed.