Contrary to what some might believe, only 1 percent of the population of the USA claims to have farming as profession while twice as much claims to reside on farms. Only 45% of farmers claimed farming as principal occupation.
The number of farms in the United States totals to 2.2 million which can be further categorized as small family and not-so-small (large family and non-family) farms.
Small family farms consist of:
- Retirement farms – operated by retired people
- Residential farms – operators report other means as major source of income
- Limited resource – sales fewer than $100,000 and net assets less $150,000
- Occupational but lower sales farms – reporting fewer than $100,000 in sales but farming as major income source
- Occupational but higher sales farms – reporting more than $100,000 and less than $249,000 in sales but farming as major income source
- Large Family Farms – reporting sales higher than $249,000 but fewer than 49,999
- Very Large Family Farms – reporting sales of more than $500,000
- Non-Family Farms – operated by organization or corporation rather than families
The percentage of sales with respect to farm
size can be analyzed from the graph below.
(The data is based on approximated figures of 2007.
