MARKED DECLINE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 257, 26 July 1930, Page 25

MARKED DECLINE

British Agriculture ® —— LIVE STOCK DECREASES X. Not only did 80,000 acres go out of cultivation in Britain during 1929, but 106,000 acres reverted from cereals to grass (states the London correspondent of the Melbourne “Argus”). The only crop which combined an increased acreage with a substantial profit was the subsidised product, sugar-beet The decline in arable land was not accompanied by any increase In live stock. British farmers lost 70,000 cattle during the year, while sheep decreased by 300,000 and pigs by 500,000. Owing to the tendency on convert arable into pasture or rough grazing land, there are 1,000,000 fewer acres of land under wheat and other crops than there were in 1914. The area in. England and Wales under the plough decreased by 160,000 acres in 1929, wheat alone declining by 65,000. The present area is the lowest since the records began. The Influx of low-priced Argentine wheat made the position most difficult for English farmers, and at the same time the French Government granted a subsidy of 100,000,000 francs to its farmers, which enabled them to export their surplus wheat into England in the form of flour. As a result the national' bill for food imports is now £ll a head of population. The potato crop was larger in 1929 than in 1928, but owing to foreign competition prices were very low, and the venture involved British growers In heavy losses. Apart from subsidised sugar-beet, almost the only satisfactory farm product was poultry. Britain’s chickens increased by 3,000,000 birds and her turkeys by 17 per cent., while the yield of eggs was 1,864,000,000, the value of poultry and eggs increasing by £2,400,000. The well-being of sugar-beet represented a complete recovery from the setback in 1928, when the acreage was reduced by 21 per cent, as compared with 1927. The 229,918 acres under beet constitute a record, being 7352 acres, or 3 per cent more than the previous greatest area returned in 1927, and 54,184 acres, or 31 per cent more than the 1928 area.

The receipts from the sale of farm crops during 1928-29 showed a fall of 25 per cent, or £13,500,000, compared with 1924-25, and the number of agricultural workers continued to declint being 770,0.00 or 2500 fewer than in June, 1928.