SMALLPAK: Innovations for resilient smallholder production systems in Punjab, Pakistan

The vast majority of agricultural producers in Pakistan are smallholder farmers. Strengthening the resilience and long‑term productivity of their farming systems is crucial for the country’s food security.

Smallholder farmers in Pakistan face a wide range of challenges: low yields, increasing climatic and other environmental stresses, high input prices, and volatile markets. Nevertheless, their needs and vulnerabilities are often neglected in agricultural policy, which prioritizes modernization approaches that primarily benefit larger agricultural holdings and enterprises. National agricultural research primarily focuses on technical innovations and pays limited attention to the specific challenges, perspectives, and local knowledge of smallholder farmers. SMALLPAK addresses this gap in current agricultural research and policy in Pakistan. The aim is to place smallholder agriculture more firmly at the centre and to promote integrative and transdisciplinary perspectives on agricultural and food systems in both research and practice.

More than half of Pakistan’s rural population lives in Punjab, the province that SMALLPAK focuses on. The predominantly small‑scale farming practiced there is crucial for the country’s food security and contributes around 40% to national agricultural production.

The aim is to develop and examine locally tested, socially adapted, and ecologically sustainable innovations for smallholder production systems that can be disseminated within the region and beyond by the involved decision-makers and other actors. Additional goals include capacity building for researchers, smallholder communities, and decision-makers to strengthen agricultural policy strategies that explicitly address the needs of smallholder farmers.

The project focuses on the province of Punjab and examines how smallholder production systems can be strengthened in socially adapted and ecologically sustainable ways. Building on local knowledge and new technologies, innovative approaches are identified, assessed, and developed in close connection with practical application. The project is structured into three core modules: 

(1) local innovations that emphasize multifunctionality and integrated, resilient production practices; 

(2) digital innovations that support smallholder farmers in enhancing their production and managing climatic and environmental risks; and

(3) organizational innovations that improve smallholders’ access to markets, inputs, and knowledge through new forms of social and economic cooperation. 

SMALLPAK follows an integrative and participatory approach that involves policy makers and, most importantly, smallholder farmers themselves, from the beginning in both research activities and project design. The project contributes to improving agricultural practice and policymaking. In addition, it contributes to capacity building among researchers, smallholder communities, and decision-makers, helping to ensure that the often politically neglected smallholder farmers receive greater attention on the agricultural policy agenda.