Under the USDA’s Definition, 90 Percent of Iowa’s Farms Are “Family Farms”
The USDA thinks “family farm” means something different than you do.
According to the USDA’s definition, those farms definitely are “family farms.” But so, under this definition, are multi-thousand-acre corporate entities using automated machinery to grow genetically engineered corn. The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism looked more deeply into the definition and why it matters.
The USDA’s definition of family farms includes “any farm organized as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or family corporation.” Size of the farm is not a factor; neither is the style of agriculture. A family farm may not even have a family that owns or works the land. In fact, according to the USDA, almost 96 percent of American farms are technically “family farms,” which begs the question: why even bother with this designation if so few fall outside it?
The Iowa Center’s article focuses on the state of Iowa, where about 90 percent of the state’s farms are “family farms,” yet less than seven percent are small or medium-sized farms that are owned by one family.
The issue with such a broad definition of family farming is primarily in the discourse. Aid is divvied up by revenue among family farmers, with additional programs going to some specialized farmers, like young or beginning farmers, organic farmers, and sustainable farmers. But the Iowa Center also argues that the lack of definition of small family farmers beyond merely “a farm with a smaller level of revenue” hurts alternative farmers, those who avoid conventional products and can, in many cases, be very valuable to local economies.
“The USDA does not have data on the number of these non-conventional family farms,” writes Molly Hunter in the article. And without terminology and data to make sure these farms are properly served, how can we encourage them?
Subscribe
0 Comments
Most Voted
Newest
Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Follow us
Republish!
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
-
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
-
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
-
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
-
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
-
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
-
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
-
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].Under the USDA’s Definition, 90 Percent of Iowa’s Farms Are “Family Farms”
by Dan Nosowitz, Modern Farmer
September 17, 2018
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreShare With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
Submit