50 beef cattle is hobby farm size. It wouldn't provide enough revenue to support a family. We needed grains, oilseeds, pigs and chickens in addition to the 50 beef cattle to support ours.
11,000 acres in Saskatchewan (and presumably Australia) is family farm size. It will have 0 or 1 employees.
I'm ok with the definition that most farms just aren't small. Certainly ok with the idea that a small farm is still giant compared to any other "small" business. But I find it odd that Clarkson's Farm, a show many are probably familiar with today, is literally 1/10 the size of what you are calling a small farm. Is that just a tiny farm?
Edit: Finally tried clicking around your links, I think you messed up the WA one. At any rate, I see a "small" farm is designated by revenue of about 28k. https://cms.agr.wa.gov/WSDAKentico/Imported/641-WSDAAgInfogr..... shows that "63% of farms are less than 50 acres" So, I can see how your average number can work, as that is how statistics work. That said, most farms are clearly not 11k acres.
Edit2: Annoyingly, that link I put up indicates the "small" revenue is 250k. It was an exemption of some sort that I closed the link on that indicated 28.
And all real farms have at least 6 figures of revenue. They also have at least 6 figures of expenses. A small combine harvester costs $500,000, for example.
I'm curious what the exemptions are on runoff regulations. That was the driver for what got me asking.
Where I am, the grain district of Western Australia:
and https://library.dpird.wa.gov.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/sites/gateway/files/Grain%20prod...
Both those statements are true, most farms are greater than 1K acres, and the average size of a grain farm is 11,000 acres.
My neighbour shoots ULR targets at 5,000 yards across his property.
Most of the grain growing here is family dynasty type ownership.
Cattle stations get much much bigger.