AN OVERVIEW OF AGRICULTURE IN THE UK

L-R: Club Chairman Christopher Jewitt and Andrew Critchlow

With ‘growing the economy’ the stated aim of the UK’s government as the means by which the country’s prosperity can be improved, an important factor in achieving this objective is to increase productivity in all sections of the economy, an important part of which is farming. It was highly topical therefore that the most recent talk to the Bakewell and District Probus Club was on this subject, the speaker being a guest, Andrew Critchlow who is the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) County Advisor for Derbyshire.

Opening his talk with an outline of his own background and career, Andrew described how, in 1986 at the age of 20, having graduated with a degree in Agricultural Science, he had taken over the running of his family’s farm in Edale after the untimely death of his father. In partnership with his mother, he modernised the farm, expanded its dairy herd, and persevered with full-time farming until he decided to step back in 2006.

Since then, he has been representing the farming industry and agriculture in Derbyshire, including his work for the NFU since 2012. In this role, he supports the interests of the Derbyshire farming community, engaging with government agencies and other bodies on matters of particular relevance to the county in all its variety from the high land of the Peak District, the magnesian limestone country of northeast Derbyshire, and the lowlands in the south. His role involves not just discussing food production but also ecosystem services, defined as the benefits that humans derive from healthy natural ecosystems such as carbon storage, water catchments and flood management, biodiversity, recreation, and production of food, timber and animal products.

Turning to the question of agricultural productivity, the speaker showed a series of graphs to illustrate how it had fluctuated in Britain in the past, and how it is expected to develop into the future. Since 1865, the year in which annual agricultural censuses were established, the trends in farm animal populations have broadly followed those of the UK’s human population. However, the farming labour force has decreased dramatically, an indication of the effects of the productivity improvements brought about by mechanisation and the use of fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. Notwithstanding the significant increases in output that have been achieved, it remains that our country is only 60% self-sufficient in terms of the food consumed by us (down from the figure of 80% in the 1980s). This, in itself, is an unwelcome trend.

Details of the Bakewell and District Probus Club, including reports of earlier meetings, can be found on its website at www.bakewellprobus.org