A new blog by ADR UK Research Fellow Paul Wilson, Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Nottingham, describes his project to try to uncover the full range of income sources that farm households depend on and how this varies across England and Wales.
Food, farming and farm households
Food is an important part of our daily lives. About 60% of our food comes from UK farmers. Most farm businesses are family farms, yet many farm households rely on income from sources other than just farming. We know a lot about how well farm businesses perform, but we know much less about the range of incomes that farm households rely on.
Project details
I will use the Administrative Data | Agricultural Research Collection (AD|ARC) dataset for England and Wales, which combines information from the 2011 Census with data on subsidy payments and overall farm business revenues. It also tells us about the members of farm households and what jobs they do, covering around 78,000 farm households. I will also use two other data sources:
- The Farm Business Survey provides information on farm business profits, which varies by crop type, livestock, farm location, and size.
- The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings provides information on typical earnings for different employment activities.
As the most recent AD|ARC data available is for 2011, this will provide farm household income estimates pre-Brexit – when the UK still operated within the EU Common Agricultural Policy.