When you look in detail at the figures you realise that following 2003/2004 there has been a dramatic drop in earnings, from which the 'industry' has never recovered fully from.
The first chart shows GVA for agriculture, forestry and fishing(constrained to headline NUTS2) at current basic prices for all regions in England.
The next chart is for all regions in Wales and again you can see there has been a steady decrease for sometime and as England the worse being after 2003/2004. However unlike England there has only been a small recovery since .
The final chart is for Scotland which had a less dramatic decline in the GVA for agriculture, forestry and fishing. The Scottish Government website says:
"In 2004, net farm incomes were lower across most sectors due to a combination of lower output prices and higher input costs. In particular cereal and potato prices for the 2004 harvest were lower than the previous year, whilst input costs such as fuel, fertilisers and agrochemicals increased. Dairy farmers saw a small increase in net farm income despite increased costs, primarily due to receipt of the dairy premium."
Data from ONS - 3:8 GVA1,2 by 6 industries (constrained to headline NUTS2) at current basic prices. And as always my usual disclaimer about comparing regions using GVA.
1 comment:
With food prices rising globally and grain stocks at a low ebb I would hope that more emphasis be put on local food production.
With Anglesey traditionally being associated as 'the foodbasket of North wales' one would expect the island to be able to grow plenty of food.
However, the degradation of soil quality from overbrowsing by livestock and the current cost of production for the farmers, makes growing staple foodcrops unprofitable.
Addressing these problems, (soil quality and unprofitable crops), would be a step towards recreating a viable farming industry on the island, without it becoming the province of large scale industrial pharming, (intensive indoor dairy and pig farming, with the attendant problems of slurry waste and antibiotic pollution of the water tables).
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