This paper begins by exploring what the term ‘family farming’ means, and how appropriate it is in the NENA region. It will explore more generally the role of farming and agriculture in the broader political economy of the region. It highlights a preoccupation among policymakers in the region, and also elsewhere, with a very restrictive definition of food security. In questioning the dominant narrative of food security and the role of family farming in it, the paper will promote instead a view that requires new politics and social policy that listens to the needs of farmers and their struggles for food sovereignty. The paper establishes the distinctive features of the region, what might be generalised and what might not be so common between countries with contrasting patterns of development. The paper explores the role and impact that farmers have had on the social relations of production in a range of countries and the position that agriculture has played in national and regional development. It will also draw on the responses of farmers to recent upheavals and set out a series of recommendations that might bolster rural development broadly defined, including the life chances and contributions made to national development by farmers in the region. It might be useful if recommendations could be divided between, on the one hand, those that seem already to be part of the government strategy and analysis of local farming problems and, on the other, a more idealised set of prescriptive reforms that would put farmers at the heart of policy. Farmers at the centre of rural development policy might help to ensure that their voices are heard and opinions acted on in the promotion of their farming and livelihood interests. Whether that is at all possible is a political issue and one that at the moment seems a long way away.
