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richard wrote:
many many people do work part time on farms - they have other jobs. On the farm next door to me - some 300 acres altogether - most of the family have other jobs, shal we ignore them too? What this will mean is that we WONT know. Tom te tom te tomtom wrote: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 tomI think the idea is to survey people who make a living from farming, or try to, not including units which are probably subsidised from other income. While it is often true that small units can be more intensive who wants to work for below minimum wage? (if you do I can find you something to do! )
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