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Re: [LUG] OT:Agricultural Census 2010

 

Eion MacDonald wrote:
tom wrote:
I mismanage a smallholding and have just had some stuff through from
Defra re the 2010 Agricultural Census. This is meant to be a full census
of farming in the UK for the EU and will presumably go towards policy
and grants etc.
They are planning NOT to ask farms below a certain size for information!!!!
I cant think of a better way of skewing the information in favour of
agri-business and away from higher productivity small units.
Tom  having a major fume!


An  economic study in 1980s, ( and the economist was my boss man) the
study found that 'productivity' was inversely proportional to 'apparent
site size' except in monoculture systems, these could not be indexed
properly as damage long term was catastrophic (dust bowls etc)outside 50
year records as repeat events.
A real damnation of 'collective farm system' in soviet side and was used
to show allotments or family vegetable gardens (UK style when family
managed) had high productivity! However productivity of allotments in
1980s was below that in 1940s but with more varied crops.
What really got me about it is if the threshold is ( say) 50 acres then france would have 10 farms. The EU will use the information when setting grant levels and the UK will get practically nothing. The excuse they gave was so as not to encumber the smaller farmer. More like can find anyone to write a really simple online database that one could spend 2 minutes inputting the data.
Tom te tom te tom

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