Overview
This briefing room focuses on indicators of the economic well-being of the households of the principal operators of family farms. In addition to aggregate statistics on income, the briefing room presents information on wealth, household involvement in farm programs, health care coverage, beginning farmers, household characteristics, and tax contributions of farm households.
The well-being of farm operator households is not equivalent to the financial performance of the farm sector or of farm businesses (see the Farm Income Briefing Room) because, in addition to the principal operator, there are other stakeholders in farming, such as landlords, junior partners not part of the principal operator’s household, and contractors. In addition, farm operator households have nonfarm investments, jobs, businesses, and other links to the nonfarm economy that are separate from their farming interests.
How do we define our target population—households of principal operators of family farms? First, we use USDA’s definition of a farm - any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the year. Second, a family farm is defined as one in which the majority of the ownership of the farm business is held by related individuals. Nearly all farms (98 percent in 2010) are family farms. Third, we identify the principal operator of each farm and the associated household. Most farms have only one operator. For multiple-operator farms, a principal operator is identified as the individual making most of the day-to-day decisions about the operation.
The briefing room includes statistics based on classifications of farm operator households that highlight the diversity of the farm sector. The ERS website gives access to indicators of well-being by several classification schemes through the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) webtool. This tool allows a user to tailor a request through data queries to produce statistical tables.
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