The USDA's
Economic Research Service
The Economic Research Service (ERS) is a component of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and a principal agency of the Federal Statistical System of the United States. It provides information and research on agriculture and ec ...
(ERS) has developed a farm typology, or farm classification, that divides the 2.1 million U.S. farms into 8 mutually exclusive and relatively homogeneous groups:
#limited resource farms
#retirement farms
#residential/lifestyle farms
#farming occupation/lower sales
#farming occupation/high sales
#large family farms
#very large family farms
#nonfamily farms.
Also, the eight categories can be collapsed into 3:
#rural residence farms
#intermediate farms
#commercial farms
Data for 2003 indicate that Commercial farms, those having sales of $250,000 or more annually, constitute 9% of all farms and account for 72% of production. Intermediate farms, constituting 24% of all farms, account for 19% of production. The largest number of farms, characterized as rural residence farms, constitute 68% of all farms and account for 8% of production.
See also
*
Small farm
Small means of insignificant size.
Small may also refer to:
Science and technology
* SMALL, an ALGOL-like programming language
* ''Small'' (journal), a nano-science publication
* <small>, an HTML element that defines smaller text
Arts and ...
References
{{CRS, article = Report for Congress: Agriculture: A Glossary of Terms, Programs, and Laws, 2005 Edition, url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110810044532/http://ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/05jun/97-905.pdf, author= Jasper Womach
External links
Updating the ERS Farm TypologyU.S. Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and production ...
,
Economic Research Service
The Economic Research Service (ERS) is a component of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and a principal agency of the Federal Statistical System of the United States. It provides information and research on agriculture and ec ...
United States Department of Agriculture