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.