Introduction 
The 2012 Census of Agriculture Farm Typology 
report provides data that supplement the 2012 
census. It primarily focuses on the “family farm,” or 
any farm where the majority of the business is 
owned by the operator and individuals related to the 
operator, including relatives who do not live in the 
operator’s household. The U.S. Department of 
Agriculture (US DA) defines a farm as any place 
from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products 
were produced and sold, or normally would have 
been sold, during a given year. 
The typology classifies all farms into unique groups. 
Family farms are classified based on gross cash farm 
income (GCFI). GCFI includes the farm operator’s 
sales of crops and livestock, fees for delivering 
commodities under production contracts, 
government payments, and farm-related income. 
Small farms have gross cash farm income (GCFI) of 
less than $350,000, and are further subdivided based 
on the level of sales and the occupation of the 
principal operator. The census of agriculture 
typology is based on USDA’s Economic Research 
Service (ERS) typology which was updated in 2013, 
increasing the small-farm cutoff from $250,000 to 
$350,000 to reflect increases in commodity prices 
and changing the measure of farm size from gross 
farm sales to GCFI. The new typology also adds a 
midsize farm category. Because of the extensive 
revisions to size categories and measures of farm 
size, the new data are not comparable to data 
previously published in the census of agriculture. 
REVISED DEFINITIONS 
Small family farms - GCFI less than $350,000 
Retirement farms - Small farms whose operators 
report they are retired, although they continue to 
farm on a small scale. 
Off-farm occupation farms - Small farms whose 
operators report a primary occupation other than 
farming. The category also includes a small 
number of farms whose operators do not consider 
themselves in the labor force. 
Farm-occupation farms - Small family farms 
whose operators report farming as their primary 
occupation. 
Low -sales farms - GCFI less than $150,000. 
Moderate-sales farms - GCFI between $150,000 and 
$349,000. 
Midsize family farms - GCFI between $350,000 
and $999,999. 
Large-scale family farms - GCFI greater than 
$ 1 , 000 , 000 . 
Large family farms - Farms with GCFI between 
$1,000,000 and $4,999,999. 
Very large family farms - Farms with GCFI of 
$5,000,000 or more. 
Nonfamily farms - Any farm where the operator 
and persons related to the operator do not own a 
majority of the business. 
USES OF CENSUS DATA 
Census of agriculture data are routinely used by farm 
organizations, businesses, state departments of 
agriculture, elected representatives and legislative 
bodies at all levels of government, public and private 
sector analysts, the news media, and colleges and 
universities. The data are frequently used to: 
2012 Census of Agriculture Introduction III 
USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service 
