Product Code Database
A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production.Gregor, 209; Adams, 454. The name is used for specialized units such as Arable land, vegetable farms, fruit farms, dairy, pig and poultry farms, and land used for the production of Fiber, biofuel, and other biobased products. It includes ranches, , orchards, plantations and estates, smallholdings, and hobby farms, and includes the farmhouse and agricultural buildings as well as the land. In modern times, the term has been extended to include such industrial operations as and aquaculture, both of which can operate on land or at sea.
There are about 570 million farms in the world, most of which are small and family-operated. Small farms with a land area of fewer than 2 hectares operate on about 12% of the world's agricultural land, and comprise about 75% of the world's agricultural land.
Modern farms in developed countries are highly mechanized. In the United States, livestock may be raised on rangeland and finished in , and the mechanization of crop production has brought about a great decrease in the number of agricultural workers needed. In Europe, traditional family farms are giving way to larger production units. In Australia, some farms are very large because the land is unable to support a high stocking density of livestock because of climatic conditions. In less developed countries, small farms are the norm, and the majority of rural residents are subsistence farmers, feeding their families and selling any surplus products in the local market.
Farming originated independently in different parts of the world, as hunter-gatherer societies transitioned to food production rather than food capture. It may have started about 12,000 years ago with the domestication of livestock in the Fertile Crescent in western Asia, soon to be followed by the cultivation of crops. Modern units tend to specialize in the crops or livestock best suited to the region, with their finished products being sold for the retail market or for further processing, with farm products being traded around the world.
A farm may operate under a monoculture system or with a variety of cereal or arable crops, which may be separate from or combined with raising livestock. Specialist farms are often denoted as such, thus a dairy farm, fish farm, poultry farm or mink farm.
Some farms may not use the word at all, hence vineyard (grapes), orchard (nuts and other fruit), market gardening or "truck farm" (vegetables and flowers). Some farms may be denoted by their topographical location, such as a hill farm, while large estates growing cash crops such as cotton or coffee may be called .
Many other terms are used to describe farms to denote their methods of production, as in collective, corporate, intensive, Organic farming or Vertical farming.
Where most of the income is from some other employment, and the farm is 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 on land prices.
Other farms may primarily exist for research or education, such as an ant farm, and since farming is synonymous with mass production, the word "farm" may be used to describe Wind farm or Puppy mill.
In most western world countries, a centralized dairy facility processes milk and dairy products, such as ice cream, yogurt, 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 male calves for veal meat, as dairy breeds are not normally satisfactory for commercial beef production. Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including maize, 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.
In the US, 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. The share of U.S. farms operated by women has risen steadily over recent decades, from 5 percent in 1978 to 14 percent by 2007.Hoppe, Robert A. and Penni Korb. (2013). Characteristics of Women Farm Operators and Their Farms. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. farm with farmstead in Ontario, Canada]]In the United States, there are over three million migrant and seasonal farmworkers; 72% are foreign-born, 78% are male, they have an average age of 36 and average education of 8 years. Farmworkers make an average hourly rate of $9–10 per hour, compared to an average of over $18 per hour for nonfarm labor. Their average family income is under $20,000 and 23% live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level. One-half of all farmworker families earn less than $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.
In Europe, traditional family farms are giving way to larger production units where industrial agriculture and mechanization brings large crop yields.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the most important policies of the European Union and is helping in the change of farms from traditional family farms to larger production units. The policy has the objectives of increasing agricultural production, providing certainty in food supplies, ensuring a high quality of life for farmers, stabilizing markets, and ensuring reasonable prices for consumers. It was, until recently, operated by a system of subsidies and market intervention. Until the 1990s, the policy accounted for over 60 per cent of the European Union's annual budget, and as of 2013 accounts for around 34 per cent.
According to the UN, "green agriculture directs a greater share of total farming input expenditures towards the purchase of locally sourced input?(e.g. labour and organic fertilisers) and a local multiplier effect is expected to kick in. Overall, green farming practices tend to require more labour inputs than conventional farming (e.g. from comparable levels to as much as 30 percent more) (FAO 2007 and European Commission 2010), creating jobs in and a higher return on labour inputs."
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 for 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.
Furthermore, there are plenty of hunting farms, guest farms and . Arable] or irrigated land is often used for raising crops such as feed grains and hay for animal feeding.
On some farms (Astro Farm) star-gazing became very popular because of the excellent optical quality in the desert.Info Namibia Star gazing Retrieved Sept. 20, 2018 The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) which investigates Cosmos is situated on Farm Göllschau in Namibia.
As new types of high-tech farm equipment have become inaccessible to farmers that historically fixed their own equipment, Wired magazine reports there is a growing backlash, due mostly to companies using intellectual property law to prevent farmers from having the legal right to fix their equipment (or gain access to the information to allow them to do it). This has encouraged groups such as Open Source Ecology and Farm HackA worldwide community of farmers that build and modify our own tools. http://farmhack.org/app/ to begin to make open source hardware for agricultural machinery. In addition on a smaller scale FarmBotOpen source CNC farming http://go.farmbot.it/ and the RepRap open source 3D printer community has begun to make open-source farm tools available of increasing levels of sophistication.Pearce, J.M.(2015). Applications of Open Source 3-D Printing on Small Farms. Organic Farming 1(1), 19–35. DOI: 10.12924/of2014.01010019
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