Peterson May Push for New Definition of 'Farm'

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson says he may look into the possibility of legislatively changing the definition of what constitutes a "farm." Peterson has indicated he will bring up his redefinition idea once the farm bill goes to a conference committee with the Senate.

USDA currently defines a farm as any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold during the year. The department last changed the definition in the 1970s when Earl Butz was secretary of agriculture. Up to that point, a farm had been defined as any place from which $50 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold during the year. Washington Insider remembers that at the time, Butz and the department took quite a bit of heat for "defining thousands of 'farms' out of existence."

Peterson is more focused on commercial-sized farms, of which he says there are only about 350,000, a far cry from the 2,089,790 tallied in USDA's most recent report on U.S. farm numbers. He also believes that a large number of so-called farmers are actually part-timers or hobby operators, and that by changing the definition (i.e., defining them out of existence), more money could be made available for other farm programs.

At current average prices and average per-acre yields ($3.70 and 153), a person who grows corn hits the $1,000 threshold and becomes a "farmer" by producing a crop on less than two acres. Producers at this scale likely do not absorb significant federal program payments, even if their numbers run into the hundreds of thousands.