Some Economic Aspects of the Beef Cattle Industry in the West of England
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
L. 4'215 .s UNIVERSITY OF PISTOL ,.•., DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS (Agricultural Economics) Selected Papers in Agricultural Economics Vol. IV. No. 3. Some Economic Aspects of the Beef Cattle Industry in the West of England Report No. 2 Cattle Rearing and Milk Production in the Upland Area of S.W. Somerset 1 9 s 2 - 53 by R. R. JEFFERY Price 51- „ Some Economic Aspects of the Beef Cattle Industry in the West of England Report No. 2 Beef Store Cattle Rearing and Milk Production in the Upland Area of S.W. Somerset I 9 5 2 - 5 3 by R. R. JEFFERY November '954 Acknowledgement This opportunity is gratefully accepted to acknowledge the extreme helpfulness and unfailing courtesy of those Brendon Hills and Exmoor farmers who co-operated with this Depart- ment in making available so readily the large amount of detailed information involved in this investigation. A special debt of gratitude is due to a number of farmers for whom this present investigation represents the third consecutive year of participation in survey work of an exacting and protracted nature. 255 Introduction THIS investigation forms the second in a series designed to cover, ultimately, the main systems of beef cattle production in the West of England. The previous survey* carried out in 1950-51 showed the rearing of beef stores, as practised in the upland marginal farming areas of N.W. Hereford, to be an unprofitable enterprise. Since that time however store cattle prices have advanced considerably, while a special Production Grant payable at the rate of flO per head on eligible cows on upland rearing farms has been introduced, developments which together must have raised considerably the returns from store cattle rearing in these areas. Not only is it desirable to ascertain the present level of pro- duction and costs under these changed circumstances, but the question of the relative economy of store cattle rearing and of milk production in upland marginal farming areas, a matter of controversy for many years has now, under present conditions of a saturated market for liquid milk, assumed a new and more urgent aspect. The production of milk for sale in these areas, traditionally devoted to store cattle and sheep rearing, com- menced during the 1930's, and was made possible only by the development of motor transport which opened up the milk market to formerly inaccessible areas. This move, actively fostered by official policy, was greatly accelerated during the war years when an acute shortage of milk was in prospect, and when the prices determined for mutton and beef were deliber- ately set at a low level in order to discourage the utilisation of lowland acres for meat production, a policy which effectively crippled the market for the traditional products of the upland areas. Indeed, it is difficult to see how many of the smaller farms in these areas could have survived the war and early post-war years without the increased returns alone made pos- sible by the sale of milk. In more recent years however when milk supplies have again become adequate there appear to have been regrets that this * Costs and Returns of the Store Cattle Enterprise in the Upland Areas of N.W. Hereford 1950-51. R. R. Jeffery, University of Bristol, Bristol I Province. 257 encouragement was ever given to these upland producers to enter the milk market. Although no direct evidence on the point is available it is frequently suggested that milk produc- tion under conditions prevailing in upland areas cannot be an economic proposition; that the collection of small quantities of milk in remote areas is expensive, which is undoubtedly true; that the milk produced is of a low standard of cleanliness, for which there is no evidence at all, and finally, on what is prob- ably the real grounds of objection, for which the other points merely provide a façade, that as the country is still short of meat but faced with a surplus of milk, upland milk producers should be persuaded, in the national interest, to return to their traditional system of beef store cattle rearing, thus relieving the milk market and at the same time increasing the supplies of beef and mutton. This is clearly a point of very great impor- tance, but the only answer that can be given at this stage is "who wills the end must will the means" and that if store- rearing was, in fact, as profitable as milk production, there would be very few farmers indeed in these areas who would not prefer the traditional, familiar, and much less exacting system of store cattle rearing. It is not only unjust but quite unrealistic to suggest that farmers in upland marginal areas who, of all farmers, must inevitably have the hardest struggle to make a living, will be willing or able to make sacrifices in the national interest not asked of more favourably situated mem- bers of the community. There is, in fact, little or no direct economic evidence as to the relative economy of store cattle rearing and milk produc- tion in upland areas. A considerable amount of circumstantial evidence however is contained in reports dealing with the finan- cial accounts of farms in these areas which suggests that milk production adds materially to the level of production and profit per acre on farms where it is undertaken. As however the milk selling farms in these areas tend to be considerably smaller in size than the non-milk selling farms, with a much lower ratio of sheep to cattle, and often a higher proportion of poultry and pigs, it is never possible to be certain to what ex- tent the more favourable results are due to the fact of milk selling or to the other factors which distinguish the groups. An investigation concerned solely with the cattle enterprise will alone provide the answer to this problem. Such an investi- gation has been undertaken by Beynon and Davies in the Bristol II Province in 1951-52 and 1952-53. This investigation however was not confined to upland rearing areas, but the 258 results obtained are not without significance for such areas. The report dealing with this investigation* shows that for two groups of farms, where, in one case store cattle rearing is prac- tised alone, and in the other where rearing is associated with milk production, the average level of production per 100 ad- justed acres devoted to cattle was 68 per cent greater in the Milk Group than in the Non-milk Group, and, compared with a surplus margin of £478 per 100 acres in the former group, the Non-milk Group showed an average deficit of £145 per 100 acres. In order to establish corresponding relationships in upland marginal farming areas an investigation was carried out in the Brendon Hills district of S.W. Somerset in 1952-53. The reasons why this area was chosen rather than that in N.W. Hereford, the district adopted for the previous investigation into store cattle rearing, are firstly that in the Brendon Hill area the turnover to milk selling took place rather earlier and has proceeded much farther than is the case in Hereford, reaching the stage where it is possible to obtain a group of upland mar- ginal farms on which cattle are kept solely for milk production to the exclusion of all beef store cattle rearing. Secondly, this area of Somerset provided the scene for an earlier survey and report by this department.t Despite a specific warning to the contrary on the part of the author the results of one section of the report have been misinterpreted to suggest that it has been proved that milk production on the small farms in the Brendon Hills is an unprofitable pursuit, and this suggestion has been widely propagated in the area. Thirdly, the Brendon Hill region is a much more homogeneous area than the N.W. Here- ford district where farms which are entirely marginal in charac- ter are closely intermingled with those that include varying proportions of lowland, and some which are entirely lowland in nature. In contrast, the Brendon Hills district takes the form of an elevated plateau, sharply distinguished from sur- rounding lowland areas, and provides a much more satisfac- tory region for the investigation of problems associated with this type of farming area. Before proceeding to a description of the investigation itself it is necessary, in order to place the problems which it is hoped * Some Economic Aspects of Store Cattle Rearing in Devon and Cornwall in 1951-52 and 1952-53. V. H. Beynon and E. T. Davies. University of Bristol, Department of Economics, Bristol II Province. t Exmoor: An Economic Survey. V. Baker, University of Bristol, Depart- ment of Economics: Bristol I Province, March 1949. 259 to elucidate in perspective against a broad background, to con- sider first of all the changes that have occurred in recent years in the production of beef and of beef cattle in this country, and more specifically in the five West of England counties that constitute the Bristol I Province. SUPPLIES OF BEEF IN THE UNITED KINGDOM Total supplies of beef and veal in the United Kingdom in 1952 reached a very low level, 61 per cent of pre-war, compared with 81 per cent as recently as 1950. It is in imported supplies that the serious deficiency occurs; in 1938 imported beef and veal accounted for 49 per cent of total supplies, but in 1952 im- ports had fallen to less than 21 per cent of the pre-war tonnage and accounted for only 17 per cent of a total supply itself 39 per cent lower than in 1938.