This is a survey of the financial performance of Contract Farming Agreements (CFAs) in England. The survey results are produced by our farming department and Dr Jason Beedell of our in-house research team.
It includes the detailed financial results of 44 CFAs covering 10,044 hectares (24,800 acres) in 2015, and our database includes the annual financial performance of 318 CFAs since 2007, so is one of the most comprehensive sets of data in England.
The sample of CFAs varies between years, as there are some new agreements and as some end. In order to check whether changes in the sample are affecting the overall results, results from 15 agreements for which we have data for 2013, 2014 and 2015, which represent a 'static sample', have been compared with the overall results. They are not significantly different from those for the whole sample.
The survey only includes land that is used for arable and root crop production. It does not include any livestock farming. Basic Payments and Entry Level Stewardship payments are included in receipts. Land in Higher Level Stewardship agreements is treated on a case-by-case basis, depending on whether the scheme payments are handled within the contract farming agreement or not.