BRITISH AGRICULTURE CULLING INEFFICIENT UNITS IS PROCEEDING TOO SLOWLY

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32213, 4 February 1970, Page 18

BRITISH AGRICULTURE CULLING INEFFICIENT UNITS IS PROCEEDING TOO SLOWLY

(Bu

JOHN FAIRHALL

in the “Guardian,” Manchester)

(Reprinted by arrangement) It is almost superfluous to ask “Why not get rid of a couple of hundred thousand or so of Britain’s farmers?” Economic forces, with the Government in train, are doing just that. The real question is how long should the process take.

Looked at through closefocused economic eyes, something over 40 per cent of the agricultural holdings of England and Wales—ll7,ooo of about 270,000 —can be dismissed as virtually irrelevant to the country’s economy. They are the holdings that have put into them appreciably less than one statistical man’s work a year. The classification is “under 275 standard man days a year,” a standard man day being eight hours work of an adult male under average working conditions.

Many Part-timers Many of these 117,000 farmers are part-timers, a good proportion of them retired men jogging downhill on their capital. Some are performing a useful function, others are neglecting their land. But all altogether, they produce only 7 per cent of the total agricultural produce. With a little encouragement the big farmers could easily replace their output. So, economically speaking, we could happily afford to get this 117,000 out of farming far faster than they are currently drifting out.

The next category, farms involving 275-599 standard man days, is the one from which most of the militants come. They are the family farms, run by one man and his family with intermittent hired help. Currently there are about 62,000 of them, but amalgamations reduce their numbers by 4 per cent or so a year.

The incomes from these farms is often pathetically low. The average net income for the smaller family farm in 1967 was only £856 and only £1283 for the bigger family farms. The 1968 figures show no real improvement and on averages like those it means that farmers with perhaps tens of thousands of pounds invested are working morning to night for the sort of money that brought London’s dustmen out on strike. Performances Differ The farmers’ action committees have naturally been making a great deal of the lower farm incomes. But the Government economists are likely to make as much of the differences in income between the high-performance and the low-performance farms. On the 1967 figures (the latest published), the ratio for small family farms of high/low was about four to one. Net income or lowperformance farms of the 275-499 standard man days was £298 and that of the high performance £l2Ol . The 1968 farm income figures step up this ratio from about four to one to about 25 to one. British agriculture may be the most efficient in the world, but clearly some farmers are better than others. In any other industry such a- range of efficiency would produce an unanswerable case, for getting the bottom 25'per cent or so out This of course is what the Government is trying to do through its schemes for payments to outgoing farmers and amalgamation grants. The numbers of takers, however, have not so far made much of an impact From October, 1967, there/ were 728 outgoers who collected their money from the Ministry and 871 amalgamators. Changes in the new Agriculture Bill should increase the number, but it will still be only a trickle until the mental attitudes of farmers change. They “Like The Life” On economic grounds, there are many thousands of

fanners who are foolish to carry on. They do so because, as the Devon men who lobbied the Commons put it, they “like the life.” It is not an argument likely to cut much ice with the Treasury when it gets down to its annual farm price review deliberations in the next few weeks.

If a farmer owner-occupier wants to sell, he can find a ready buyer. The return on land may be only about 2 per cent, but the taxation pattern helps to maintain the traditional flight to the land of investors. If a farmer could sell up and get a better return on his money by putting it in the savings bank, why should he expect any sympathy if he does not do so? The farmers’ answer is that agricultural production needs to expand to reduce food imports and so assist the balance of payments position. Clearly it is an argument the Government would accept if it could be done at a reasonable cost.

Everybody accepts the farmers’ case that agricultural development means more capital has to be pumped in. With a declining labour force, new technology, and changes of scale in both farming and marketing, more capital would be needed just to mark time.

No specific statement about changes in Government support for agriculture will be coming from the Minister now until after the farm price review is completed in midMarch. It is significant, however, that when he went to speak to the militant farmers of Devon, he rammed home the point that, in spite of their moans, there was a steady rate of investment in improvement and expansion in the industry. Ministry officials are currently making the same point Selective Credit What is needed is some method of releasing capital to the efficient producers and speeding up the process of driving out the less efficient. One way would be to make more credit available through a preferential rate but to be more selective in its allocation.

Having got together nationally in London, the farmers’ action groups will be turning up the volume of their protest. They should remember however that they

did not invent action groups. There was the cotton action group only a few years ago. They had stormy meetings, lobbied by the special trainload, and were very hot on the threat of foreign imports. It is textile history now. Imports were not cut. The men who were shouting ten years ago are now mostly out of the industry and only a handful of large highly capitalised concerns remain. Tories and Labour alike decided they did not want the traditional cotton industry. So they got rid of it. The action cries turned out to be an epilogue. If I were a small farmer I think I would be looking around for some sound industrial investment.