Agricultural intensification, through increased yields, and raising incomes, through enhanced labor productivity, are two dimensions prioritized for sustainable agricultural development. Prioritizing these two outcomes leaves labor intensity as a hidden adjustment variable. Yet, when agriculture is mainstay and the prospects of labor absorption in other sectors are scarce, the density of agricultural employment is central for livelihoods. We revise relationships of land and labor productivity and labor intensity with farm size, using standardized data for 32 developing countries. We show that labor productivity increases with farm size, while land productivity and labor intensity decrease with farm size nonlinearly. Technical efficiency increases with farm size. We further systematize the evidence on how, beyond the farm level, local contexts can be pivotal in choosing how to prioritize the dimensions of the trade-off space. Our findings contribute to debates on the fate of small-scale farmers, and call for contextualized decisions.

California is a landmark setting for studying produce recovery efforts and policy implications because of its global relevance in agricultural production, its complex network of food recovery organizations, and its environmental and public health regulations. Through a series of focus groups with organizations involved in produce recovery (gleaning organizations) and emergency food operations (food banks, food pantries), this study aimed to deepen our understanding of the current produce recovery system and determine the major challenges and opportunities related to the produce recovery system. Operational and systematic barriers to produce recovery were highlighted by both gleaning and emergency food operations. Operational barriers, such as the lack of appropriate infrastructure and limited logistical support were found to be a challenge across groups and were directly tied to inadequate funding for these organizations. Systematic barriers, such as regulations related to food safety or reducing food loss and waste, were also found to impact both gleaning and emergency food organizations, but differences were observed in how each type of regulation impacted each stakeholder group. To support the expansion of food recovery efforts, participants expressed need for better coordination within and across food recovery networks and more positive and transparent engagement from regulators to increase understanding of the specifics of their unique operational constraints. The focus group participants also provided critiques on how emergency food assistance and food recovery are inscribed within the current food system and for longer term goals of reducing food insecurity and food loss and waste a systematic change will be required.

Agricultural intensification, through increased yields, and raising incomes, through enhanced labor productivity, are two dimensions prioritized for achieving sustainable agricultural development. Prioritizing these two outcomes leaves a third element of a trade-off space, labor intensity, as a hidden adjustment variable. In contexts where agriculture is the main source of livelihood for the majority of the population and when the prospects of labor absorption in the nonfarm sector are scarce, the density of agricultural employment offers a means to lift the population out of poverty, especially of those farm workers who are landless, unemployed or underemployed. In this article, we revise the classical relationships between land and labor productivity and labor intensity with farm size, using a standardized data set on 32 countries. We show that for all countries, labor productivity increases with farm size, while both land productivity and labor intensity decrease with farm size, with all these relationships being nonlinear. Technical efficiency, on the other hand, increases with farm size, with few exceptions. We further systematize the evidence on how, beyond the farm level, local contextual factors can be pivotal in choosing how to prioritize the different dimensions of the trade-off space. Our findings contribute to the pressing debates on the fate of small-scale farmers by showing the complexities of the trade-offs between land and labor productivity, and labor intensity, and call for contextualized decisions.