To aid agricultural zoning practitioners in understanding the theories and arguments under which a farmer’s use of his or her land will pass muster with local zoning officials, this article will explore the development of the body of law defining commercial agricultural operations in relation to state and local zoning exemptions in an effort to provide a continuum of how courts have expanded the definition of farm and agriculture exemptions in zoning ordinances with the hope that we might predict how courts in the future will interpret new farm diversification efforts. To help accomplish this goal, the cases cited herein include generous recitations of their facts to better illustrate some of the dynamics that affect changes in farming operations and to give credence to the rules of construction in all of these types of cases that seek to define an often ambiguous term. Most of these decisions are based on the facts