The word 'smallholders' is correct and usable in written English.
It refers to individuals or families who own or manage small plots of land for subsistence farming or other agricultural purposes. Example: "The government's agricultural policies are aimed at supporting smallholders and promoting sustainable farming practices."
They can also provide smallholders with market opportunities they might not otherwise have access to.
By building their capacity to provide support to smallholders, NGOs can help communities avoid the potential health problems of composting at home without any safeguards.
It is clear that smallholders need viable alternatives.
This monoculture is threatening smallholders' livelihoods and food security.
In parts of the Brazilian Amazon, where smallholders' farming techniques are still very basic, a local environmental group has helped reduce forest loss in one community by getting farmers to adopt a few simple improvements, such as planting their crops in rows rather than scattering seeds, and using hoes for weeding.
And in Africa, where governments are weak and smallholders are the main deforesters, they may be especially effective.
Mukul Mathur, who heads its Nigerian business, says that moving a container from Kano to Lagos costs as much as from Lagos to Osaka, though the distance to Japan is 13 times greater.Agricultural reforms have begun in the past four years, including the introduction of new subsidies for smallholders.
One example is drip irrigation, a system pioneered in Israel's Negev desert that directs a small amount of water precisely to the root of each plant.The loudest opposition to such changes will come from the people who benefit most from the present system: comfortable landowners rather than peasant smallholders.
Smallholders have their arms twisted to sign away their rights for a pittance.This is worrying in itself.
Next, it might help the environment: those smallholders manage a disproportionate share of the world's water and vegetation cover, so raising their productivity on existing land would be environmentally friendlier than cutting down the rainforest.
Smaller smallholders are also at a disadvantage in getting loans, new seeds and other innovations on which higher yields depend.Such bottlenecks and market failures make it harder for smallholders to respond to higher prices, even without the multiple distortions that governments also introduce into world food markets.
