DEFRA has announced the provisional results from its June 2005 survey of agriculture and horticulture for England. The results make interesting reading.

“Livestock numbers are declining at an alarming rate”, warns George Chichester, farm management consultant of Strutt & Parker. The pig herd has fallen by over 10%, whilst dairy herd and sheep flocks have fallen by nearly 5% each. The only rise is in the beef herd, of some 2%, but that is likely to be short lived.

“Farmers face intense pressure from low priced imports, coming from countries where wages, welfare standards, environmental protection and health & safety obligations are significantly lower than in this country, and after many years of struggling to make ends meets, livestock farmers are beginning to give in and give up. This is potentially disastrous for our efforts to maintain a degree of self sufficiency and for the rural landscape”.

Reduction in livestock numbers is not the only statistic of concern. Arable farming is also on the decline. The area of the country’s main arable crop, wheat, declined by 6%, and the area of the second main crop, barley, declined by 8%. Oat area is down 18%. There has been a noticeable rise in the area of land left fallow – a staggering increase in percentage terms of over 500%, but this is misleading as it is from a very low base; this indicates that arable commodity prices are now so low that many farmers have simply decided not to crop their less productive areas at all.

“This dramatic reduction in farming activity over just one year is very worrying” cautions Mr Chichester. It results not only from the low prices resulting from unrestricted imports from an oversupplied market, but also from this year’s huge change of emphasis of subsidy support, away from the commodity itself and towards the wider environment. But ultimately this does not help anybody: Western farmers are being driven out of business by low returns, third world farmers are also suffering from low commodity prices, and cheap food is still not getting through to those in the world still so desperately in need of it. UK farmers are willing to help feed the world, but they cannot afford to subsidise their operations from within”.