The word 'smallholder' is correct and usable in written English.
This term is used to refer to a person or family who owns or farms a small amount of land. For example, “The development project was successful in providing vital resources to smallholders in the area.”.
It notes that smallholder farm yields fall short of the estimated potential for most food crops (cereals and pulses).
The opportunity for impact is huge: two-thirds of Sierra Leone's working population are smallholder farmers, and yet 70% of them live below the poverty line.
What is even more exciting is the agreement, but also the echo to do things differently; to stop piloting and go to scale with what works (and there is already a lot that works); and to treat agriculture, including smallholder agriculture, as a business.
Young people must also be encouraged to adapt the smallholder model they inherit if it is to survive the 21st century.
Financial inclusion is a huge enabler of impact for smallholder farmers, but credit alone is insufficient.
I understand that smallholder agriculture can be a difficult sell to the business community.
Adesina has become an evangelist for turning Africa's smallholder farmers – most of our food production occurs on farms that are less than a hectare in size – into businesses that generate growth at all income levels.
In Mozambique and Ghana, for example an alliance of development partners and industry organizations have helped smallholder farmers partner with SAB Miller to grow cassava for the company's new brands of cassava beer.
Mina Holland Idea: Portable irrigation technology helping sub-Saharan smallholder farmers grow crops out of season.
And with centres like these being constructed across the country, the hope is that the programme will eventually help to lift 80,000 smallholder farming families – about half a million people – out of poverty.
Likewise, in Ethiopia, the launch of a revolutionary new commodities exchange in 2008 was designed to provide real-time information to the country's smallholder farmers, who constitute 80% of the population and who were generally only aware of the price of their commodities at local markets.
