240 Million Smallholder Farms Could Feed the World by 2050

NEW YORK — Supporting 240 million smallholder farming families to adopt regenerative agriculture could help produce the additional food needed by the world’s growing population through 2050 while restoring degraded land and ecosystems, according to a new book launched during Climate Week NYC.

Whole Earth Farming: Smallholders and the Great Regenerative Transformation, by development expert Hugh Locke, argues that smallholder farmers — among the least-supported producers in global agriculture — could play a major role in the future of food security.

There are roughly 475 million smallholder farms in the Global South, generally operating on less than two hectares. Together, they already produce about 30% of the world’s food, despite limited access to finance, markets, training and agricultural services.

With the global population expected to grow by roughly 1.5 billion by 2050, Locke argues that supporting about half of these farming families — 240 million farms occupying only around 12% of global arable land — could help meet additional food demand without accelerating environmental degradation.

“The world’s smallholder farmers are too often treated as beneficiaries of development assistance when they should be recognized as architects of the next agricultural transformation,” Locke says.

Haiti Shows What Is Possible

Locke’s argument draws heavily on experience in Haiti, where he co-founded the Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA) with Haitian agronomist Timote Georges in 2010.

The organization now works with about 10,000 farmers. Locke says participating farmers receiving sustainable agricultural support have increased yields by an average of around 40%, while household incomes have risen by 50% to 100%.

SFA farmers also plant approximately one million trees annually.

Its “tree currency” model allows farmers to plant and care for trees in exchange for seeds, training and agricultural services — linking improved farm productivity directly with environmental restoration.

More Food, Healthier Land

Regenerative agriculture aims not simply to reduce farming’s environmental damage, but to improve soil health, biodiversity, water systems and farm resilience.

Methods vary according to local conditions and can include crop rotation, cover crops, intercropping, composting, reduced tillage and agroforestry.

For Locke, the crucial measure is not whether farmers follow a particular set of practices, but whether conditions actually improve.

“The more important question is, ‘Is the land, the ecosystem and the farming community measurably better as a result?’”

The book highlights the emerging Regen10 Outcomes Framework as one approach to measuring ecological health, farmer livelihoods and community resilience rather than defining regenerative agriculture through a single farming technique.

Climate Benefits

A large-scale transition could also contribute to tackling climate change.

Locke estimates that regenerative agriculture across roughly 480 million hectares could eventually remove 0.48–0.72 gigatons of CO2 annually through soil carbon accumulation.

Combined with reduced emissions from synthetic fertilizers, the potential climate benefit could reach approximately 0.6–0.85 gigatons of CO2 equivalent annually at mature adoption.

Locke cautions that soil carbon storage is finite and varies substantially by location and farming conditions.

“Regenerative agriculture is not a license to keep emitting carbon elsewhere,” he says. Its value lies in delivering climate benefits alongside more food, healthier soils, greater biodiversity and stronger rural communities.

A “Great Regenerative Transformation”

Locke describes the opportunity as a “Great Regenerative Transformation” — comparable in ambition to the Green Revolution, but with a broader definition of success.

Instead of measuring agriculture primarily by yield, the approach asks what farming leaves behind: healthier soils, restored ecosystems, greater biodiversity, improved water systems and viable farming communities.

The book includes 21 farming stories from 18 countries, showing how regenerative approaches are already being applied in different environments.

In his foreword, Roy Steiner of The Rockefeller Foundation describes the world’s 475 million smallholder farming households as “not a measure of the problem, but as a measure of the possibility.”

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and chef and humanitarian José Andrés are among those endorsing the book.

Launched during Climate Week NYC, Whole Earth Farming makes a simple argument: the world does not have to choose between feeding more people and restoring the planet.

The farmers capable of helping achieve both are already farming. The challenge is giving them the resources to do it.

Whole Earth Farming: Smallholders and the Great Regenerative Transformation