A farm is an area of land devoted to the production and management of food, either produce or livestock. It is the basic unit in agricultural production.[1] Farms may be owned and operated by a single individual, family, or community, or by a corporation or company. A farm can be a holding of any size from a fraction of a hectare to several thousand hectares. A business producing tree fruits or nuts is called an orchard; a vineyard produces raisins, wine or table grapes. The stable is used for operations principally involved in the production of horses and other animals and livestock. A farm that is primarily used for the production of milk and dairy is a dairy farm. A market garden or truck farm is a farm that raises vegetables, but little or no grain. Additional specialty farms include fish farms, which raise fish in captivity as a food source, and tree farms, which grow trees for sale for transplant, lumbering, or decorative use. The development of farming and farms was an important component in establishing towns. Once people have moved from hunting and/or gathering and from simple horticulture to active farming, social arrangements of roads, distribution, collection, and marketing can evolve. With the exception of plantations and colonial farms, farm sizes tend to be small in newly-settled lands and to extend as transportation and markets become sophisticated. Farming rights have been the central tenet of a number of revolutions, wars of liberation, and post-colonial economics.
Traditionally, the goal of farming was to create a profit, and to produce an amount of cultivated material (i.e. corn, wheat, etc) so that the resulting harvest has more worth than the cost of planting such a harvest. The costs could include the acquisition of seeds as well as the time and energy required to tend to such a venture. The resulting product is often used to sustain those who farm as both a food to eat and a commodity to sell. The term farming covers a wide spectrum of agricultural production work. At one end of this spectrum is the subsistence farmer, who farms a small area with limited resource inputs, and produces only enough food to meet the needs of his/her family. At the other end is commercial intensive agriculture, including industrial agriculture. Such farming involves large fields and/or numbers of animals, large resource inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), and a high level of mechanization. These operations generally attempt to maximize financial income from grain, produce, or livestock.
Dairy farming is a class of agricultural enterprise, where female mammals animals cattle, goats, or other lactating animals are raised for long-term appropriation of their milk, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy for processing and eventual retail sale. In most Western countries, a centralized dairy facility processes milk and products obtained from milk (dairy products), such as cream, butter, eggs and cheese. In the United States, these dairies are usually local companies, while in the southern hemisphere facilities may be run by very large nationwide or trans-national corporations (such as Fonterra). Dairy farms sell the male calves borne by their mothers, usually for veal meat, rather than raising non-milk-producing stock. Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa, and hay. This is fed directly to the cows, or stored as silage for use during the winter season. Additional dietary supplements are added to the feed to increase quality milk production.
Farming is a significant economic sector in Australia. A farm is an area of land used for primary production which will include buildings. Where most of the income is from some other employment, and the farm is really an expanded residence, the term hobby farm is common. This will allow sufficient size for recreational use but be very unlikely to produce sufficient income to be self-sustaining. Hobby farms are commonly around 5 acres but may be much larger depending upon land prices (which vary regionally). Often very small farms used for intensive primary production are referred to by the specialization they are being used for, such as a dairy rather than a dairy farm, a piggery, a market garden, etc. This also applies to feedlots, which are specifically developed to a single purpose and are often not able to be used for more general purpose (mixed) farming practices. In remote areas farms can become quite large. As with estates in England, there is no defined size or method of operation at which a large farm becomes a station. Regardless of size, the term station is only used for farms where the main activity is grazing. Some cotton farms in north-western New South Wales or south-western Queensland have been formed by combining previous sheep stations once sufficient water has become available to allow cotton to be grown .