Talk: Farm

From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.

Rmherman,

I believe that the concept of a farm being both owned and run by a "person or family" is definitional. Agriculutural businesses owned by a corporation and run by its employees are really not farms in the traditional sense; they may be plantations or ranches; the more inclusive term "grower" or "producer" is also sometimes used. A look in a good dictionary might help. I have M-W but it is a print edition and 40 miles away at the moment. Anthere might have an OED or some other more international reference.

It is certainly normal usage in the Midwest of America - anywhere you do agriculture is a "farm", a farm owned by a family is a "family farm". Why else would we have come up with the second term? Rmhermen 15:43 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Anthere does not know what OED means :-)

Well, we use "ferme" (farm) to talk about small (usually family) businesses. And "exploitation agricole" (farming business) as a general term which encompass both family farms and bigger businesses. So, my feeling differs slightly from Kat here, as I give a more general definition to agricultural business. However, Kat's definition of farm is rather fine by me. I would say perhaps, person, family or small company (to take into account rather common situations of association of two men not from the same family). Ant