Family farm

A family farm is generally understood to be a farm owned and/or operated by a family; it is sometimes considered to be an estate passed down by inheritance. It contrasts with farms operated as collectives, trusts, non-family corporations or in other institutionalised forms.

The concept or definition does not easily translate across languages or cultures, as there are substantial differences in the agricultural traditions and histories between countries. Thus, in the United States, a family farm can be of any size, while in Brazil, the official definition of a family farm (agricultura familiar) is limited to small farms worked primarily by members of a single family.

At least 500 million of the world's [estimated] 570 million farms are managed by families, making family farms predominant in global agriculture.

Definitions

An "informal discussion of the concepts and definitions" in a working paper published by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2014 reviewed English, Spanish and French definitions of the concept of "family farm". Definitions referred to one or more of labor, management, size, provision of family livelihood, residence, family ties and generational aspects, community and social networks, subsistence orientation, patrimony, land ownership and family investment. The disparity of definitions reflects national and geographical differences in cultures, rural land tenure, and rural economies, as well as the different purposes for which definitions are coined.