Really? Do you have a citation for this?
All the data I have seen says that small farmers are basically nil in terms of production, profitability, and land area relative to the big mega farms.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1156726/err152.pdf
And since the devil's in the definitions:
"ERS defines a family farm to be one in which the principal operator, and people related to the principal operator by blood or marriage, own more than half of the farm business"
So I think that's valid.
The previous comments were about small family farms, not just 'family' farms.
Would we consider that to be a smaller farm?
However the definition of "family farm" tends to get stretched a lot. 50,000+ accre "Family Farms" are hardly what most people think of as family farms.
Eighty-three percent of cropland was on farms that were larger than the mean size, and 71 percent was on farms that were more than twice (1,100 being the meadean).
Also of note, a lot of "Farms" are really only farms in name only. Hay production for example qualifies even if you outsource harvesting to someone else. Happen to own a large field well it's easy to make some money on the side even if someone else does all the work and it barely covers taxes.
No, it means the distribution of crops isn't the same, which isn't surprising. Perhaps corporate farms are more likely to produce profitable crops like vegetables or fruit or something.
Even if I concede less than 100 acres as a "small farm" (and 100 acres is almost twice the median farm size), that represents almost 66.4% of the total number of farms yet only 8.4% of total production.
Small farms are not a rounding error, but they sure are headed that direction.
Forbes has a list of the top 20: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/21/private-companies-11_lan...
Far better to classify total land holdings by farm size.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/agriculture/farm...
827 is instructive:
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0827.p...
More than 1/3 of harvested acres come from farms larger than 2000 acres (of which there are ~80).
Farms larger than 500 acres account for roughly another 1/3 of harvested acres.
Of the remainder, about half of acreage is harvested on farms larger than 260 acres.
There are some huge land holders in that top category (the mean harvested acres is 1.5 million, the mean land ownership is ~4x that).
I also know of a family ranch in Saskatchewan that's about 30,000 acres. It's run by a husband, wife and two hired hands.
I made a stupid mistake, there are 80,000 large farms, not 80. Damn it. At least that makes a lot more sense.
I worked 12 hour days during the summer from the time I was 12 until I was 17.
well, i see one more time how USSR planned collective economy sucked compare to the US farming - a USSR collective farm of 10-20K acres would contain 200-300 households with most working age people of the households employed at the farm.
i was born in 72 in USSR. Roughly half my family, like grandmother & grandfather, 2 uncles and an aunt lived in a "kolhoz" and "sovhoz" near by. We visited frequently and i spent some summers there. I also worked at a "sovhoz" the summer after 6th grade. There wasn't making up of the stuff. There were a lot of inefficiencies, low productivity - manual labor instead of machines - and bad organization - typical slice of USSR economy.
Wow, honestly just reading that just blew my mind. Do you think that made you a better person or helped you at all down the road? That is a ton of manual labor for anyone, especially a child.
I know that this used to be common practice back before the industrial revolution but I guess I never really thought about it, or heard of anyone who actually went through something like that.
Serious question, no disrespect meant.
Though, it's really not uncommon. I picked apples for a season and most people worked all the hours they possibly could, because they had to (me included).
An interesting moment of mis-calibration that I'll never forget; At one point I was picking apples near the roadside and a man driving by stopped to ask me a question. He said, "How much do they pay you?" to which I replied $15. And he said, "For one of those?" pointing to the bag around my neck [0]. Slightly astounded I replied, "No, for one of those!" pointing to the large wooden bin on the ground [1].
It's a moment that will stick with me forever as a stark realisation that most people are totally disconnected from the manual labour that goes into the production of the things they consume every day (I know that applies to a lot more that just fruit and veg, and we're all guilty of it). I remember thinking at the time how unjust it was that once I made enough money to travel back to the city, I'd be earning a magnitude more sitting in an office in front of a computer.
I think if nothing else you develop a strong work ethic. Probably to a fault; over the years I've had to learn not to look so critically on those that don't put in as much work as I do. At the same time, I notice and admire those that have the same work ethic as me.
All in all I think it's a positive experience that's helped me along the way to be good at what I do now (tech startup). I think it's become part of my core character and I feel a certain sense of pride at how hard I worked when I was younger (and still do).
[0] http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B...
[1] http://www.applebarn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/IMAG1310...
And to be honest I don't feel that it in anyway hurt nor hindered me either. I grew up just as healthy, and probably stronger then most of my peers. And still don't feel that I was abused in anyway, not to mention all through highschool I was making 2 - 3k a year in income because of that work.
Heavens knows the average size in Australia - the biggest station is 2,366,700ha. I guess it probably needs to be defined by the sort of farming being done.