[jtuente]

For reference, 50 hectares (123 acres) is a small farm for an ag community/family. It's not the least bit surprising that they are low profit. Several members of my extended family farm at and above that acreage and a majority of my grandfather's farmland is leased out to a larger family operation since he's retired. Those family members mostly have regular 40/week jobs, since they're just hobby farms.

[opinion-is-bad]

Absolutely, the cutoff to be a large farm is quite low. I am a farmer myself, but we have a very large plot compared to the cutoff point (~10,000 acres, half of them permanent and half row crops). There are enough difficulties to managing our operation, I would never advise someone to go into the business unless they had an almost religious calling to it.