In spite of Big Agra’s claim that GMO foods are a necessity to keep the world well fed, the Food and Agriculture Organization seems to think differently.

Family farms are the “backbone” in the fight against hunger and to achieve sustainable rural development. This is the conclusion of the annual report released today by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In its report on “The State of Food and Agriculture 2013 (SOFA)", FAO analyzed the performance and value of family farming, which in 2013 accounted for about 570 million holdings.

For the UN’s body, “family farms, which account for more than nine out of 10 farms in the world, can be a catalyst for sustainable rural development.”

The FAO warns that in a world where demand for food is growing but land and water resources are scarce, farmers will have to produce more and the solution is in the small and medium farmers, not on the hands of large food conglomerates.

In its analysis, the FAO underlines how “family farmers manage the agricultural resources of the world and provide over 80% of their food” while living in poverty and food insecurity. Food scarcity is mainly due to monopolization on behalf of large multinational corporations as well as the subsidies that governments provide them with while small and medium size farmers have to go at it alone.

The eradication of poverty in countries with low or middle income must include an increase in the productivity of labor, FAO said. Much is this increase in productivity could directly be addressed by enabling small and medium size farmers provide food for themselves and their communities, instead of having to sell their lands to multinationals for pennies on the dollar and becoming slave workers to the very same corporations that dispossessed them of the livelihoods.