America's Diverse Family Farms: 2015 Edition

Overview

Farming is still an industry of family businesses. Ninety-nine percent of farms are family farms, and they account for 90 percent of farm production. Small farms make up 90 percent of the farm count and operate 46 percent of the Nation's farmland. Most farm production, however, occurs on midsize and large-scale family farms. Errata: On May 6, 2016, ERS revised America's Diverse Family Farms: 2015 Edition to reflect revisions to the data source underlying this report (see ARMS data Updates & Revisions History- http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/arms-farm-financial-and-crop-production-practices/update-and-revision-history.aspx). The corrections to the underlying data resulted in minor differences between the previous and revised estimates, in most cases. The largest changes were an 8-percentage-point decline in the share of hay produced on small family farms (page 4) and an 8-percent increase in average income from farming earned by all U.S. family farm households (page 9) .