How large is a farm?

Answer 1

farms can range greatly in size, depending on farm type or location.

in the western region farms consist of thousands of acres, mostly crops. Although, there are many ranches out west that cover tens of thousands of acres all the way down to a hundred (the largest ranch in the west and US, i believe, is around 76,000 acres). there are also many grape orchards in the west.

the same goes for the central region of the US. although different crops providing different yields are grown. again many farms in this region consist of thousands of acres all the way down to forty or fifty.

the southeast region consists of citrus crops and many cattle ranches/feedlots. citrus orchards again can range from thousands of acres of corporatley operated, individually owned lots and individually owned and operated lots. farms are smaller here than other places.

the northeast consists largely of dairy farms, berry farms and fish farms. I am a dairy farmer and ill tell you this, we are smaller than crop farmers but more employees are required since the amount of work is greater per acre/animal in the dairy industry compared to ranching, feedlots and crop farms. Our farm, including rented land, consists of about 1400 acres and we are one of the largest in the area. dairy farms arent measured by acres, but by the number of head on the farm. some farms consist of 14 cows (extremely small) and the largest dairy has about 40,000 cows. however, most dairy farms will have from 200 to 400 cows. Farms over 400 head are usually forced to bring feed in from far away places in other parts of the state and even other states since the amount of land owned cannot produce enough feed for the animals.

(These locations are not specified only to an area, crop farms are all over throughout the country along with dairy farms)

Hobby farms dot the country and usually arent made up of more than 40 acres. hobby farms are named "hobby" farms for obvious reasons. the operators usually have many different species of animals rather than just one that will make a profit. They usually do not make profits large enough to break even.