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Paul Williamson is from Deloitte »As I prepare for my church's harvest festival tomorrow I am in reflective mood about the State of Agriculture in England. It has been a harvest locally that promised much and delivered less.....extremely cruel to those of my many friends in farming who were looking to move on following a number of poor years.
Let's look at the data for England and the north east. The trend is clear and I have to say depressing but agriculture has a habit of not cycling with the rest of the economy!
The headline figures here in the northeast are a gross value added figure fallen from 0.80 to 0.38 in the last decade. The percentage of the workforce in agriculture has fallen from 1.22 to 0.98%; crops and animals are all down in number except for oilseed rape and permanent pasture, the later is due to a large number of holdings used by only horses coming in to the subsidy system in 2003. There are 2,063 more holdings (in the north east) a 28% increase in 10 years? The result is, of course, because lots of people from outside the farming industry have bought a country dwelling with 'more than a garden but less than a farm' the National Farmers Union even invented a whole new category for them - countryside members, nationally they number 60,000. I should also mention the other membership organisation who will make them welcome - I myself am a member of both - the CLA The Country Land and Business Association.
Farming is now in competition with many other industries - indeed many of the same ones that are ironically equally present in urban areas such as tourism. That the industry will cycle is for sure with politics, econominics and the weather all a factor. It may move with the rest of the economy or perhaps not....time will tell!
What I do want to do is remind people that when times are tough it is a time to reassess what is important in life. Back to Maslow's Hierarchy I guess?
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