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by PopAlongKid 881 days ago
The most meaningful statistic I found in the article is

>Small family-owned farms accounted for 19% of the value of all agricultural products sold in 2017

1 comments

So the 4% of total number of farms accounts for 81% of value of all agricultural products?
No, there are also mid-size and large-scale family farms. Many of those are owned by corporations, but that corporation is owned by a single family so it counts as a family farm. "Small" is defined as gross income of $250,000 or less.
A gross income of 250,000 isn't a small farm, it's a hobby farm. The average margin for farms is 15%, and smaller farms are worse than large farms. A $250,000 gross likely means a <$20K net, and you can't support a family on that in America even if you grow your own food.

Worse than the small margin is the variability. A good year can have a 50% margin and a bad year a -25% one.

Where is the $230k going here?
Fuel, seed, fertilizer, herbicide, equipment maintenance, rent or interest, et cetera.

Page down a couple pages on this PDF, and they have a great breakdown for each crop:

https://www.saskatchewan.ca/business/agriculture-natural-res...

Do those not fall under COGS and would have already been accounted for in gross income?