Current state of small and mid-size farms

Another factoid from the NRC/NAS report:

" The mid-sized family farms (sales between $100,000 and $500,000) are examples of the prototypical “family farm” that has captured much of the public imagination and public policy debates over the future of American agriculture (Browne et al., 1992). According to the 2007 census, these mid-sized farms represented just under 10 percent of all U.S. farms, produced 16.5 percent of all farm sales, and managed another quarter of the nation’s farmland and nearly 30 percent of its cropland.

" Small and mid-sized family farms together owned two-thirds of the total value of farmland, buildings, and equipment and managed roughly 60 percent of all U.S. farmland and cropland in 2007."

Source: Committee on Twenty-First Century Systems Agriculture, "Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century", National Research Council, 2010, p. 49, http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12832.html