Most Massachusetts Farms are Small Farms

Figure 1.4 shows the distribution of Massachusetts farms by size.   The distribution has remained fairly constant.   Most of Massachusetts's farms are small farms; in both 1997 and 2002, about 60 percent of all farms were less than 50 acres in size.   Farms that were between 50 and 179 acres in size represented 29 percent of the farms in 1997 and 27.5 percent in 2002.   Figure 1.4 also shows that most of the state's loss of farms occurred in the smaller size classes between 1997 and 2002.   Massachusetts saw slight increases in the number of farms in the two largest size classes.   As a result, over 12 percent of the state's farms were in the two largest size classes in 2002 compared to 10.7 percent in 1997.