A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food (produce, grains, or livestock), fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single individual, family, community, corporation or a company. A farm can be a holding of any size from a fraction of a hectare to several thousand hectares.
There are two unrelated etymologies for the term "farm:"
The word in the sense of an agricultural land-holding derives from the verb "to farm" a revenue source, whether taxes, customs, rents of a group of manors or simply to hold an individual manor by the feudal land tenure of "fee farm". The word is from the mediaeval Latin noun firma, also the source of the French word ferme, meaning a fixed agreement, contract, from the classical Latin adjective firmus-a-um meaning strong, stout, firm. As in the mediaeval age virtually all manors were engaged in the business of agriculture, which was their principal revenue source, so to hold a manor by the tenure of "fee farm" became synonymous with the practice of agriculture itself.
The term farming covers a wide spectrum of agricultural production work. At one end of this spectrum is the subsistence farmer, who farms a small area with limited resource inputs, and produces only enough food to meet the needs of his family. At the other end is commercial intensive agriculture, including industrial agriculture. Such farming involves large fields and/or numbers of animals, large resource inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), and a high level of mechanization. These operations generally attempt to maximize financial income from grain, produce, or livestock.
Traditionally, the goal of farming was to work collectively as a community to grow and harvest crops that could be grown in mass such as wheat, corn, squash, and other cash crops. Centuries later these same farmers took charge of livestock, and began growing food exclusively for the feeding of livestock as well as for the community. With the growth of actual civilization the farmer's focus changed from basic survival to that of financial gain. In smaller towns on the outset of civilization the farmer did retain the need to grow their own food, but the financially minded farmer was largely spreading. With the Renaissance came the plantation, a "Farm" primarily worked by others primarily for the gain of the plantation's owner. Then came a new age of industry where the farm could be manned by fewer men and big machines. This meant a complete revolution for farming which will be discussed below.
A business producing tree fruits or nuts is called an orchard; a vineyard produces grapes. The stable is used for operations principally involved in the training of horses. Stud and commercial farms breed and produce other animals and livestock. A farm that is primarily used for the production of milk and dairy is a dairy farm. A market garden or truck farm is a farm that grows vegetables, but little or no grain. Additional specialty farms include fish farms, which raise fish in captivity as a food source, and tree farms, which grow trees for sale for transplant, lumber, or decorative use. A plantation is usually a large farm or estate, on which cotton, tobacco, coffee or sugar cane, are cultivated, often by resident laborers.
Dairy farming is a class of agriculture, where female cattle, goats, or other mammals are raised for their milk, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy for processing and eventual retail sale.
In most Western countries, a centralized dairy facility processes milk and dairy products, such as cream, butter, and cheese. In the United States, these dairies are usually local companies, while in the southern hemisphere facilities may be run by very large nationwide or trans-national corporations (such as Fonterra).
Dairy farms generally sell the male calves borne by their mothers for veal meat, as dairy breeds are not normally satisfactory for commercial beef production. Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa, and hay. This is fed directly to the cows, or stored as silage for use during the winter season. Additional dietary supplements are added to the feed to improve milk production.
Where most of the income is from some other employment, and the farm is really an expanded residence, the term hobby farm is common. This will allow sufficient size for recreational use but be very unlikely to produce sufficient income to be self-sustaining. Hobby farms are commonly around but may be much larger depending upon land prices (which vary regionally).
Often very small farms used for intensive primary production are referred to by the specialization they are being used for, such as a dairy rather than a dairy farm, a piggery, a market garden, etc. This also applies to feedlots, which are specifically developed to a single purpose and are often not able to be used for more general purpose (mixed) farming practices.
In remote areas farms can become quite large. As with estates in England, there is no defined size or method of operation at which a large farm becomes a station.
Regardless of size, the term station is only used for farms where the main activity is grazing. Some cotton farms in north-western New South Wales or south-western Queensland have been formed by combining previous sheep stations once sufficient water has become available to allow cotton to be grown.
The land and buildings of a farm are called the "farmstead." Enterprises where livestock are raised on rangeland are called ranches. Where livestock are raised in confinement on feed produced elsewhere, the term feedlot is usually used.
In 1910 there were 6,406,000 farms and 10,174,000 family workers; In 2000 there were only 2,172,000 farms and 2,062,300 family workers.
In the United States, eighty-one percent of all farmworkers are migrant workers, and seventy-one percent are foreign-born. Eighty percent of farmworkers are men, with the average age being 31. Additionally, farmworkers earn less than $75,000 per year, making an average hourly rate of less than $27.00. On average, farmworker families earn $10,000 per year, which is significantly below the 2005 U.S. poverty level of $19,874 for a family of four.
In 2007, corn acres are expected to increase by 15% because of the high demand for ethanol, both in and outside of the U.S. Producers are expecting to plant 90.5 million acres (366,000 km²) of corn, making it the largest corn crop since 1944.
Category:Human habitats Category:Land management Category:Rural culture Category:Rural geography
ar:مزرعة bar:Bauanhof ca:Granja cs:Statek (zemědělství) cy:Fferm da:Bondegård pdc:Bauerei de:Bauernhof et:Talu es:Granja eo:Bieno fa:کشتزار fr:Ferme (agriculture) fy:Pleats ga:Feirm gv:Gowaltys hr:Poljoprivredno gospodarstvo it:Fattoria he:חווה חקלאית ht:Fèm (non) lv:Zemnieku saimniecība li:Haof (boerderie) jbo:cange mr:शेत ms:Ladang nl:Boerderij nds-nl:Boerderieje ja:農場 ko:농장 no:Gård nn:Gard nrm:Ferme pl:Farma pt:Fazenda ru:Ферма simple:Farm sk:Farma (gazdovstvo) sl:Farma sh:Farma fi:Maatila sv:Bondgård vi:Trang trại tr:Çiftlik (ziraat) yi:שטאַל zh:农场This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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