This only seems large by European standards I think. The 50-100 acre farms in my homeland are a relic of pre-industrial times, and can't be competitive in a world market without vast EU subsidies.
>Since 1974, the Census of Agriculture
has defined a farm as any place from
which $1,000 or more of agricultural
products were produced and sold, or
normally would have been sold, during
the census year.
That's a weird definition.
Acres of contiguous land controlled by a single owner is how people tend to use the word farm.
In reality, farmers are often equipment owners and negotiate with landowners to manage X acres.
None of this discussion is worth wile in referencing farms.
Best could be said : a farmer who has to service equipment equal to a 400 acre farm benefits by laws protecting their farm equipment.
Here in Western Australia, the average cropped area per farm is almost 3,000 acres. From my perspective, 2,000 acres is a small-ish farm, and the 50-100 acre farms surrounding my parents' house in Scotland are comically small, heavily-subsidised gardens.
GP may be wrong about the USA as a whole, though I'm sure there are areas of the US where 2,000 acres would indeed be a small farm.
Do you have any references on small farm size efficiency? In Japan ~90% are < 50 acre both by land mass and count, and seeing the 100m^2 farms in my neighborhood I can't believe it's anywhere near efficient, even when sharing farm equipment.
Small family farms are good when a country is still developing and has excess labour, but once industrialization gets going folks move to urban areas for factory jobs and farms need to consolidate and mechanize. This has been the story over history for all countries have been 'developed', and in the post-WW2 is generally true of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Though this mechanization never really happened in Japan.
How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region goes over this quite well:
The USDA says that only 4% of farms in America are 2,000 acres or larger.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2019/2017C...
The average farm in America is 446 acres, according to the USDA.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...
The OP is completely out of touch thinking that 2,000 acres is small.