land and water distribution by enforcing existing traditional local rules. whilst larger estate farms may have governmental licences guaranteeing rights to the water, a study found that those large-scale farms which adhere to the traditional water rights structures fare better in terms of social reputation, which better ensures their access to water. adhering to the water law in order to enforce their permits is less effective, as regional tanzanian local governments generally attempt to avoid conflict with their populace. on a larger scale, however, existing traditional rules are ineffective in maintaining cooperation among users along the nduruma river. thailand in 1975, there were 4.2 million smallholder farming households in thailand. in 2013, thailand had 5.9 million smallholder farming households. the average area of these smallholdings had shrunk from 3.7 to 3.2 hectares (9+1⁄4 to 8 acres) over that period. instead of farms getting larger and less numerous, as has been the case in the global north, the reverse happened: they got smaller and more numerous. united states several definitions of small farm have been formulated in legislation. in 1977 the us congress, via the food and agriculture act of 1977, defined a small farm as one with sales under $20,000. at the time these comprised 70% of farms in the us. the act sponsored additional research on small farming operations by us land grant universities and their extension services and mandated that an annual report on these activities be issued by the us secretary of agriculture. a 1997 study by the united states small farms commission defined small farms as those with less than $250,000 in gross receipts annually on which day-to-day labor and management are provided by the farmer and/or the farm family that owns the production, or owns or leases the productive assets. in 2000, such farms accounted for about 90% of the more than 2.1 million u.s. farms, but only about 40% of u.s. farm production. the concentration of production on fewer and larger operations is a longstanding concern among some segments of the agricultural community. others view these changes as inevitable, and even necessary to maintain the efficiency and competitiveness of the sector. farm typology analysis by the usda economic research service divides the small family farm category into five groups: limited-resource farms; retirement farms; residential/lifestyle farms; farming occupation/lower-sales, farming occupation/high-sales. technology for small farmers many farmers are upset by their inability to fix the new types of high-tech farm equipment. this is due mostly to companies using intellectual property law to prevent farmers from having the legal right to fix their equipment (or gain access to the information to allow them to do it). this has encouraged groups such as open source ecology and farm hack to begin to make open-source agricultural machinery. european union the debate concerning the role of small farms within the european union is ongoing. the european commission states that more than three quarters of farm holdings in the european union are less than 10 hectares, with a large number less than five hectares, although as of 2009 it had not established a formal definition of the term that could be used in its common agricultural policy. the public perception of the possible benefits of small-scale farming has led to requests for further studies from the european commission.