We all know the "mean", and some of us know the "mode" and the "median". The ERS people are using the "midpoint", specifically for cropland. It's defined (my words) as the number of acres of cropland on a farm such that half the cropland in the country is in farms larger than that, and half is on farms smaller than that. Because the distribution of acreage among farms is so skewed, with many farms being very small, and a few farms being very large, they argue it gives a better picture of what's happened over the last 25 years.
Using the same concept for livestock, they say:
"In 1987, the midpoint dairy herd size was 80 cows; by 2007, it was 570 cows. The change in hogs was even more striking, from 1,200 hogs removed in a year to 30,000. But consolidation was widespread: midpoint head sold for fed cattle doubled between 1987 and 2007, while those for broilers and cow-calf operations (cattle, less than 500 pounds) more than double"80 to 570 cows is jawdropping.
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