Family farming in America

A family farm is generally understood to be a farm owned and/or operated by a family; it is sometimes considered to be an estate passed down by inheritance. It contrasts with farms operated as collectives, trusts, non-family corporations or in other institutionalised forms.

The concept or definition does not easily translate across languages or cultures, as there are substantial differences in the agricultural traditions and histories between countries. Thus, in the United States, a family farm can be of any size, while in Brazil, the official definition of a family farm (agricultura familiar) is limited to small farms worked primarily by members of a single family.

At least 500 million of the world's [estimated] 570 million farms are managed by families, making family farms predominant in global agriculture.

An "informal discussion of the concepts and definitions" in a working paper published by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2014 reviewed English, Spanish and French definitions of the concept of "family farm". Definitions referred to one or more of labor, management, size, provision of family livelihood, residence, family ties and generational aspects, community and social networks, subsistence orientation, patrimony, land ownership and family investment. The disparity of definitions reflects national and geographical differences in cultures, rural land tenure, and rural economies, as well as the different purposes for which definitions are coined.

The 2012 United States Census of Agriculture defines a family farm as "any farm where the majority of the business is owned by the operator and individuals related to the operator, including relatives who do not live in the operator’s household"; it defines a farm as "any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during a given year."

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines a "family farm" as one that relies primarily on family members for labour and management.

In some usages, "family farm" implies that the farm remains within the ownership of a family over a number of generations.

Being special-purpose definitions, the definitions found in laws or regulations may differ substantially from commonly understood meanings of "family farm". For example, In the United States, under federal Farm Ownership loan regulations, the definition of a "family farm" does not specify the nature of farm ownership, and management of the farm is either by the borrower, or by members operating the farm when a loan is made to a corporation, co-operative or other entity. The complete definition can be found in the US Code of Federal Regulations 7 CFR 1943.4.

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