Farmer Forests (soppina betta forests) are minor forests allowed by the state for the community use as organic support in central Western Ghats area of Karnataka, South India. Sustainable utilisation of these for foliage and fuelwood would ensure the farmer to stand on his own and prevent him from unduly pressurizing the natural forests nearby. Ten helmets’ were selected at random, from each of which nearly 10 farmers were interviewed by Participatory Rural Appraisal technique. One representative forest from each of the 10 helmets’ was taken up for phyto-sociological survey and the results were compared with a natural forest benchmark selected nearby. Species diversity at all levels was higher in the forests than the natural forest. The farmers were found to promote select species like Aporosa lindleyana, Memecylon umbellatum, Syzygium cumini and S. caryophyllum for their foliage requirements. The benefits derived, lopping patterns, protection and planting attitudes of the farmers were marked with a differentiating scheme and the relative scores on these four heads of management attributes were summed up into a management value index (MVI). It is found to increase with the extent of land holding of the farmers, and optimization of the MVI was observed at an land holding size 1: 1.5 for a low, intermediate 1-2 ha and rich more than 2 ha categories. The average size class distribution of tree species individuals of the 10 forest described the expected L-shaped curve similar to that of the natural forest, but possessed larger number of individuals.