Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by short12 1628 days ago
The family farm is a thing of the past. They are called hobby farms
2 comments

My father farming on ~400 acres purchased from the government ~140 years ago isn't a hobby. The records for the deed have only my relatives after the Louisiana Purchase. There aren't a whole lot of family farmers left out there, but they do exist (regardless of large operations branding themselves as "family farms" because "I have a family!" and what others classify them as).
How do I interpret this?

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/even-mega-farms-are-mos...

Most farms are "family" owned but perhaps OP was trying to communicate that nowadays farm owners are rarely farm workers?

A very large proportion of farms of any size have a single owner or are split between e.g. brothers.

A rather small proportion of farms are singly/family owned and have a majority of the work done by that family.

Hobby farms generally are run by an individual. Family farms are run by families, and thus tend to be much larger to be able to support families.