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Agricultural and Food Policy
 Agri Outlook
Radio
Number 130
Question: What is USDA’s definition of a farm? (2:15 minutes)
Audio/Video Script:
Dr. Bobby Coats
Extension Economist
University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture
What is USDA’s definition of a farm? I’m Bobby Coats Extension Economist
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.
What is USDA’s definition of a farm?
A farm is "any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural
products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the
year".
USDA notes that the activities included as agriculture have undergone
modification in recent years.
First, in 1995 operations having 5 or more horses or ponies and no
other agricultural sales were counted as farms.
Second, an operation with 1 or more horses with agricultural sales of
at least $1,000, qualified as a farm.
Third, two industries, maple syrup and short rotation woody crop
farms, were added beginning in 1997 as a result of the new North
American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
Fourth, to further align the counting of farms with the Census of
Agriculture, places with only 100 acres or more of pasture in 2002 were
included in farm and land in farm numbers.
Fifth the handling of Indian reservation land was changed in 2002 to
provide some accounting for individual farms.
Government payments are counted in the sales figure to define a farm. Also,
ranches, institutional farms, experimental and research farms, and Indian
Reservations are included as farms. Places with the entire acreage enrolled in
the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), or other
government programs are counted as farms.
The definition of a farm was first established in 1850 and has changed nine
times since.
This has been Bobby Coats Extension Economist University of Arkansas Division
of Agriculture.
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