This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion on family farm. This type of production has been the subject of analysis and has a great importance in rural development-oriented policies in Argentina. In recent times there has been a change in its treatment, at least in propositional terms that suggests the inclusion of territorial aspects, cultural and political factors that are largely new and enabled to consider more thoroughly this portion of the agrarian social structure. The paper aims to discuss the use of this category, with special emphasis on public policies that focus on these kind of subjects today. To do this, we analyzed official documents connected with the topic and a series of papers relevant to the reality of Argentina and part of Latin America.