JUN 2 I Ate PROFIT AND PURPOSE IN FARMING
A STUDY OF FARMS AND SMALLHOLDINGS IN PART OF THE NORTH RIDING
by J. B. BUTLER
THE UNIVERSITY 01312DS DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE ECONOMICS SECTION _ -
MAY 1960 PROFIT AND PURPOSE IN FARMING
A STUDY OF FARMS AND SMALLHOLDINGS IN PART OF THE NORTH RIDING
by J. B. BUTLER
THREE SHILLINGS CONTENTS
Foreword
PART I
THE FARMS Page
Introduction • •• • •• ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• 5 The Modal Type of Farming ... ••• ••• ••• ••• 9 Variation from the Modal Type •• • ••• ••• ••• 18 Financial Results of Different Farming Systems ••• ••• 21 The Causes of Variation... ••• ••• ••• • •• 32 Conclusions ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• • •• ••• 44
PART II
THE SMALLHOLDINGS
Holdings under 50 acres... ••• ••• ••• •• • • •• 48 The Small Farmer Scheme ••• ••• •• • • •• ••• 62 Comparison with the West Riding ... ••• ••• ••• 64 Conclusions ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• 66
APPENDIX
List of Parishes in the Survey Area ••• ••. ••• ••• 68 3 FOREWORD
To farm successfully, within the economic meaning of success, a farmer must pay attention to the type of fanning which he should follow, to the size of his business, and to the efficiency with which he prosecutes it. A wealth of material has been accumulated in recent years to provide standards to help farmers and their advisors to judge whether individual farms are turning to the most profitable use the labour, machinery, feeding stuffs and other resources employed on their holdings. Much less time has been given to studying whether the system itself is the most profitable of the alternative systems that might be followed. This is the object of the present report which concerns itself particularly with the reasons why a certain district in the North Riding of Yorkshire, selected because of its apparent homo- geneity, in fact revealed a variety of systems. Not all were equally profitable, and Mr. J. B. Butler has gone in considerable detail into the reasons which have led some farmers to adhere to systems which give less in material rewards than those followed by many of their neighbours. Mr. Butler has also studied some aspects of the size of farms in the area. Those of less than 50 acres comprised as much as 48 per cent of the total number of officially designated agricultural holdings. The opportunities for making a satisfactory income on them are necessarily limited by their small size, but the study reveals that in fact only a quarter of them were occupied by full-time farmers. The others were either farmed by people who had an alternative occupation, or were pieces of land occupied as part of a private residence. While the job of an economist is to view problems primarily from the aspect of the use that is made of scarce resources, it is nevertheless frequently essential for him to study the motives which cause members of society to take certain decisions which it may 1?.e suspected are not economic. In this North Riding study Mr. Butler draws attention to some of the facets of farming that make it a living as well as a business. Acknowledgement must be made to those farmers in the area who were good enough to discuss these problems in the light of their own experience, and to Messrs. W. S. Rayfield, I. Kinloch and H. T. Shaw, members of the National Agricultural Advisory Service in the North Riding who gave both advice in developing the study, and infor- mation regarding details of the area. The collection of the material on which Part II of this report is based was done mainly by I. G. Simpson, A. Oldfield, L. W. Bolton, E. G. Hunt, Jean Radford, Gwendoline Burtonshaw and Margaret Wright. HARWOOD LONG May, 1960. 4 PART I INTRODUCTION It is frequently assumed that types of farming are closely assoc- iated with the physical and climatic conditions of the areas in which they occur. If we are dealing with very wide geographical variations this is obviously true: tropical, sub-tropical and temperate areas, for example, all have their own characteristic farming types; and even within much narrower ranges the general tendency holds good. The predominance of grassland in the wetter western part of the British Isles compared with the arable cropping found in the drier eastern areas, for instance, is largely due to climatic differences. In this case, however, the farming systems are much less clearly distinct and a good deal of overlapping occurs. Nevertheless there have been numerous attempts to distinguish "type of farming areas" on an even narrower basis, and much of our thinking about farming problems rests on the assumption that certain types of farming are closely associated with specific areas, and that the pattern of agricultural production within these areas is, in fact, largely uniform. An example of this approach is the Ministry of Agriculture's Types of Farming Map of England and Wales, published by The Land Utilisation Survey in 1941. This divides the whole country into 200 areas according to the predominant system of farming found in each. These are then classified into seventeen types, based on the proportion of arable land and the nature of the dominant and secondary enterprises. The aim is to give a picture of the predom- inant farming systems in different parts of the country. It is recognised that considerable variation occurs within each type area, but little is known about the extent or nature of this variation or the reasons for its occurrence. The present study sets out to answer, for one small area in Yorkshire, the following three questions: 1. What is the predominant type of farming in the area? 2. How much variation is there from the modal type? 3. What are the reasons for the variations which occur? The area selected is situated in the northern part of the Plain of York, and is classed as an area of general mixed farming on the Ministry's map. Its suitability for the purpose of the study is due to its uniformity of soil and other natural conditions, and to the presence of a well marked type of farming. At the same time, it is a district where natural conditions would permit the establishment of almost any system if economic or other circumstances required it, so that the type of farming is not dictated by factors beyond the control of the farmers. 5 THE SURVEY AREA The area lies in the Plain of York between the towns of Ripon, Boroughbridge, Thirsk and Bedale, and extends along both sides of the Great North Road. It includes 29 parishes and 339 holdings and covers an area of about 65 square miles, of which some 36,000 acres are under crops and grass. The land is mainly level, with only slight undulations and varies from 50 feet to 200 feet in elevation, with the greater part not above 100 feet. The soil varies considerably from light sandy barns to rather wet and heavy types, but most of the land consists of medium, well drained barns and there are no large areas unsuitable for arable farming. Table 1 shows the land use pattern of the area as a whole.*
TABLE 1 LAND USE OF THE SURVEY AREA (as returned at 4th June 1958)
Total acreage of-
Crops and grass •• • •• • •• • 35,413
Rough grazings •• • •• • •• • 685
Percentage of crops and grass area in- °A Wheat ••• ••• ••• ••• 5 Barley ••• ••• ••• ••• 20 Other corn ... ••• ••• ••• 8 Total corn ••• ••• ••• 33 Potatoes ••• ••• ••• 7 Sugar beet ... ••• ••• ••• 5 Fodder crops, etc. ••• ••• ••• 6 Temporary grass ••• ••• ••• 15 Permanent grass ••• ••• 34
100
Numbers per 100 acres of- Dairy cows ... ••• ••• ••• 3 Other cattle ... ••• ••• ••• 27 Pigs ... ••• ••• ••• ••• 31 Ewes ... ••• ••• ••• ••• 20 Other sheep ••• ••• ••• 29 Poultry ••• ••• ••• ••• 316
The farming is predominantly arable. Corn growing is important, barley being the main corn crop as much of the land is somewhat light for wheat. The chief feature of the cropping is, however, a high proportion of potatoes and sugar beet. The latter crop is mainly
* This table is based on the June 4th returns for 1958. The rest of the analysis discussed in this report uses the figures for 1955 which were the latest available when the investigation was planned. Sample comparisons indicate no material change since 1955. 6 grown for the factory at York, and the benefits obtained from the use of tops for stock feed and,to a less degree,the pulp(either wet or dried) are an important consideration in the growth of the crop, in view of its relatively low profit compared with potatoes. Dairy herds are rarely kept On these farms, but beef cattle, either home reared or purchased as stores, are nearly always found and perform the dual function of utilising grass and of providing farmyard manure for the root crops. Sheep are kept on a number of farms, and usually consist of a breeding flock running on grass, the lambs being sold fat during the summer. Sometimes some hoggs are purchased for feeding on beet tops or fodder crops in the winter. Pigs and poultry are kept on many of the fauns. The above brief account describes what appeared from a superficial examination, to be the typical farming system. One of the objectives of the study was to endeavour to give a more precise account of the matter by isolating a modal type. THE DATA The first analysis was based on the Ministry of Agriculture's Returns for June 1955. These showed that the area contained 339 holdings in the following size groups. Under 10 acres 103 holdings, or 30 per cent
10-19 ,, 22 „ 7 1, 11 20-49 lf 36 " Y1 50-149 „ 88 „ 26 150-249 „ 52 „ 15
250-349 „ 20 „ 6 l!
350 acres and over 18 „ 5 7,
339 100
Where more than one return clearly referred to a single holding, the separate units were combined to arrive at the above distribution, but a few composite holdings may have been missed. To obviate, as far as possible, any error due to this cause, a check was made of the parishes adjoining the survey area no holdings were found which appeared to be under the same management as these within it, so that any such joint holdings must consist of farms separated by consider- able distances and are unlikely to be managed as single units. In order to obtain information about types of farming and variations in systems, visits were paid to 30 farms in the area, or one in six of all the farms over 50 acres. The farms to be visited were not chosen at random (the groups would have been too small for samples to have any significance in any case) but were selected as being representative of the different sizes and types of farm in the area. They were reasonably well distributed among the different size groups, as the following figures show. 7 Farms visited One-sixth of total 50-149 acres •• • 18 15 150-249 acres • • 7 9 250-349 acres • • • 1 3 350 acres and over 4 3 As regards type of farming, 14 of the sample farms were of modal type (half of these having pig and poultry enterprises); 5 were non-intensive mixed farms without cows; 10 were dairy farms (of which 4 were otherwise modal, 5 were mixed and 1 was all grass) and one was an all grass farm without dairy cows. The information obtained from these case studies (including farm accounts from 14 of them) supplies much of the data on which the following sections are based. The visits to modal type farms were made with the object of getting to know at first hand the reasons for the predominance of this type. The variant farmers were questioned particularly as to the reasons which had led them to depart from the more normal farming practices of the area. THE MODAL TYPE OF FARMING
FARMING IN THE AREA In examining the type of farming in the area it was considered necessary to set a minimum level of farm size, and accordingly all holdings of less than 50 acres were discarded. These comprise nearly half the holdings in the area and must clearly be an important factor in the farming and social conditions of the district. They present, however, quite distinct problems and have been made the subject of a separate enquiry in the second part of this report. The remaining 178 farms of 50 acres or more in size form the basis of the type of farming, which is the subject now to be considered. The first object of the investigation was to see how far a" modal " type of farming was to be found in the district. The term modal is used in statistics to mean the most commonly occurring value in any collection of data. For example, in the table on page 7, the modal size for farms over 10 acres is 50-149 acres, because there are more farms in this group than in any other. The modal type of farming is therefore the system typical of the area and occurring more frequently than any other. If such a uniform type occurs, it can in turn be represented by a "modal farm," embodying all the commonest characteristics of the modal group. In this part of the report, therefore, the term "modal type" is used for the broad type of farming characteristic of the district, and "modal farm " means the hypothetical farm which represents this modal type most fully. On the assumption that most farmers are primarily interested in making profits, one would naturally expect the modal type of farming to be the system which, in the particular circumstances of the area, gives the best average level of profits to farmers of normal ability. We shall endeavour in the course of this report to see how far this expectation is borne out in practice. In order to determine the nature of the modal type of farming it is necessary to examine all the main farm enterprises in order to determine the modal level of each. In other words, we must find out what acreage of each crop and what numbers of each kind of livestock are most commonly found on the farms. For this purpose frequency distributions have been prepared and are shown in Tables 2 to 6. They show the amount of variation in each enterprise and the frequency of occurrence at each level.
Corn. Table 2 shows the distribution of total corn area per 100 acres. This proved to be very regular with a well marked peak at 30-39 per cent in every group; 45 per cent of all farms come within this range. Only in the smallest size group does the area fall below 10 per cent, and 8 of these farms in fact grew no corn at all. 9 TABLE 2
FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF CASH CROPS, 178 FARMS (PER 100 ACRES)
All 50-149 150-249 250-349 350 acres Farms acres acres acres and over
Number of farms ...... 178 88 52 20 18 % Corn % % % % Per cent of farms with- 0- 9 acres ...... 6 12 - - - 10-19 acres ...... 6 7 4 5 11 20-29 acres ...... 18 15 23 10 28 30-39 acres ...... 45 40 46 70 33 40-49 acres ...... 17 17 17 15 17 50 acres and over ... 8 9 10 - 11
100 100 100 100 100
Cash roots Per cent of farms with- 0- 4 acres ...... 24 32 19 15 11 5- 9 acres ...... 13 10 14 15 28 10-14 acres ...... 30 37 21 30 22 15-19 acres ...... 18 9 31 15 28 20 acres and over ... 15 12 15 25 11
100 100 100 100 100
Cash Roots. These consist of potatoes, sugar beet and a few carrots. There are two concentrations in this distribution one below 5 per cent and the other at 10-14 per cent. This suggests the presence of two divergent types of fanning, one with a cash root area averaging somewhere about 10-14 per cent, and another, commonest on the smaller farms, with a considerably lower proportion. In fact, 30 per cent of the farms between 50 and 100 acres grew no cash roots at all. One-third of all the farms of 50-150 acres grew less than 5 per cent of cash roots and more than half of these had also less than 20 per cent of their area under corn. There is clearly a considerable group, of the smaller farms particularly, following a relatively unintensive system of cropping.
Grass. Only a minority of farms had more than 20 per cent of temporary grass or more than 60 per cent of permanent grass. There is a well marked peak in the distribution of permanent grass at the 20-39 per cent range; the areas of temporary grass appear to be more irregular. 10 TABLE 3
FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF GRASS, 178 FARMS (PER 100 ACRES)
All 50-149 150-249 250-349 350 acres farms acres acres acres and over
Number of farms ...... 178 88 52 20 18
Temporary grass ...... % % % % % Per cent of farms with- 0- 9 acres ...... 47 42 58 50 33 10-19 acres ...... 38 41 32 35 39 20-29 acres ...... 7 7 8 10 6 30 acres and over ... 8 10 2 5 22 100 100 100 100 100
Permanent grass Per cent of farms with- 0-19 acres ...... 17 20 12 10 28 20-39 acres ...... 45 43 44 65 33 40-59 acres ...... 27 22 32 25 39 60-79 acres ...... 7 7 12 - _ 80 acres and over ... 4 8 - - 100 100 100 100 100
Dairy Cows. In analysing the dairy cow numbers it has been necessary to separate those farms which had one or two cows to supply the house (and possibly to rear a few calves) from the genuine dairy herds. The great majority of farms either had no cows at all or had a total of not more than three, so that the modal type is clearly a non-dairy system of farming. Dairy herds were found chiefly on the smaller farms, particularly those with the lower acreages of cash crops referred to above. The most commonly occurring size is a herd of about 10 cows per 100 acres, the numbers just below and just above this level being about equal. The proportion of farms with dairy herds declines steadily from 36 per cent on the smallest farms to 15 per cent in the 250-349 acres group, but rises to 33 per cent on the largest farms. The possibility of error due to suckling herds being wrongly entered as dairy cows cannot, however, be entirely ruled out and would probably affect the larger farms rather than the smaller ones.
Other Cattle. Other cattle (mainly beef stores and fattening cattle) were found on all farms, except four in the smallest group. Figures based on the numbers on the farm at 4th June do not necessarily 11 TABLE 4
FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF CATTLE, 178 FARMS (PER 100 ACRES)
All 50-149 150-249 250-349 350 acres farms acres acres acres and over
Number of farms ...... 178 88 52 20 18
% Dairy cows ...... % % % % Per cent of farms with- 0— 3 per farm ... 72 64 81 85 67 Over 3 per farm and— under 10 per 100 acres 12 11 9 5 33 10-19 per 100 acres 11 15 8 10 — 20-29 per 100 acres 3 6 2 — — 30 and over „ 2 4 —
100 100 100 100 100 Other cattle Per cent of farms with- 0— 9 per 100 acres ... 9 7 7 10 17 10-19 per 100 acres ... 25 22 29 35 22 20-29 per 100 acres ... 29 28 29 40 22 30-39 per 100 acres ... 26 25 29 15 39 40-49 per 100 acres ... 6 10 2 — —
50 and over f f ••• 5 8 4 ---'
100 100 100 100 100 give an accurate picture of the total turnover of Cattle; but they show that in summer the typical farm carried somewhere between 10 and 30 cattle per 100 acres, with a tendency for the numbers to be a little higher on the smaller farms.
Sheep. About half the farmers kept sheep, the proportion without flocks being rather higher on the smaller farms. Where sheep occur, there is no observable trend of any kind in the total numbers at 4th June. Numbers range from less than 25 to over 125 per 100 acres without any sign that one particular flock size is more usual than another. The total sheep numbers at 4th June, however, include both ewes and lambs and a few shearlings. A better measure of sheep numbers is given by showing the ewes only, and Table 5 gives the distribution of ewes (75 farms had ewe flocks). Even these were somewhat variable, although there is a well marked peak at 20-30 ewes per 100 acres and this may be taken as the modal size of the ewe flock where sheep are kept. The mean size of flock in all farms where ewe flocks occur is 29. The actual sheep density does 12 TABLE 5 FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF SHEEP, 178 FARMS (PER 100 ACRES)
All 50-149 150-249 250-349 350 acres farms acres acres acres and over
Number of farms ...... 178 88 52 20 18
Ewes ••• ••• ••• % % % % % Per cent of farms with— None ...... 58 71 52 45 28 1— 9 per 100 acres ... 4 2 4 5 11 10-19 per 100 acres ... 6 5 10 5 11 20-29 per 100 acres ... 14 12 17 20 11 30-39 per 100 acres ... 8 2 10 15 22 40-49 per 100 acres ... 6 3 7 5 17 50-59 per 100 acres ... 2 2 — 5 — 60 and over „ ••• 2 3 _ — —
100 100 100 100 100 TABLE 6 FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS OF PIGS AND POULTRY, 178 FARMS (PER FARM)
All 50-149 150-249 250-349 350 acres farms acres acres acres and over
Number of farms ...... 178 88 52 20 18 % Pigs ••• ••• ••• % % % % Per cent of farms with— None ...... 28 33 23 25 17 1— 19 per farm ... 31 33 27 30 34 20— 39 per farm ... 13 11 17 15 5 40— 59 per farm ... 6 8 4 10 — 60— 79 per farm ... 8 8 6 10 17 80— 99 per farm ... 1 1 2 — — 100-199 per farm ... 6 5 13 — — 200-299 per farm ... 4 1 4 — 22 300 and over per farm ... 3 4 10 5
100 100 100 100 100 Poultry Per cent of farms with— None ••• ••• ••• 9 9 8 15 5 1— 99 per farm ... . 26 27 27 20 28 100-199 per farm ... 22 25 19 20 17 200-299 per farm ... 13 12 19 15 — 300-399 per farm ... 11 13 6 10 17 400-499 per farm ... 3 3 6 — — 500-999 per farm ... 11 " 7 13 5 28 1,000 and over per farm 5 4 2 15 5
100 100 100 100 100
13 not vary greatly with size. It is highest in the sub-group between 100 and 150 acres (36 ewes per 100 acres) and shows no tendency to diminish with increasing total acreage.
Pigs. The figures for pigs (and for poultry) have been calculated per farm" and not "per 100 acres" as the numbers kept bear little relation to acreage. More than one quarter of the farms kept no pigs, and the commonest herd size was less than 20 pigs in all sizes of farm. This refers to the total numbers of pigs on the farm at 4th June. There is a fairly steady decline in the frequency for practically all sizes of farm with increase in size of herd.
Poultry. Poultry are kept on most farms, but the commonest unit was a small flock of less than 100 birds. Many of these were kept for domestic use only. Frequency declines steadily as size of flock increases in all groups. The numbers relate to all poultry on the farm at the census date, including chickens being reared for replace- ments.
THE MODAL TYPE From the frequency distributions it may be inferred that the modal type of farming in the area has about one-third of its land in corn, 15 per cent in cash roots and less than one half in permanent grass. It has no dairy cows but carries other cattle which,during the summer, number some 25 per 100 acres, and has a flock of poultry and probably some pigs. Sheep may or may not be present. Of these characteristics the most important from the point of view of defining the type of farming are the cropping, the absence of dairy herds and the presence of other cattle. Accordingly all the farms in the area which conformed broadly to the modal type in these respects were extracted, the defining limits being: Corn-25 per cent of the area or over Cash roots-10 per cent of the area or over Permanent grass—Not more than 50 per cent of area No dairy herds (apart from house or suckling cows) Other cattle present
The limits were not applied with absolute rigidity—a farm which was otherwise entirely typical was not excluded solely because its cash root area was only 9 per cent or its permanent grass area 52 per cent, but these special cases were exceedingly few. There were 91 farms falling within this modal type and from these a single modal farm to represent the whole group has been constructed using for the purpose the frequency distributions of Tables 2-6 and the weighted average figures for the 91 farms. This modal farm is shown in Table 7 together with the mean figures for the modal group. 14 TABLE 7
THE MODAL FARM
•Mean of 91 Farms of Modal Type Assumed per 100 acres per Farm Modal Farm
acres acres acres Corn ...... 38 79 70 Cash roots ••• ••• ••• 17 35 30 Fodder roots, etc. ••• ••• 7 14 15 Temporary grass ••• ••• 13 27 25 Permanent grass ••• ••• 25 53 60
Total acreage ••• ••• 100 208 200 No. No. No. Dairy cows ••• ••• ••• - - - Other cattle ...... 23 48 50 Sheep (on 43 farms with sheep) 76 157 60 ewes Pigs (on 73 farms with pigs) ... 35 73 - (on 23 intensive farms) ... 83 176 - (on 68 non-intensive farms) 13 26 3 sows Poultry (on 82 farms with poultry) 200 416 - (on 23 intensive farms) 443 938 - (on 68 non-intensive farms) 98 212 100 layers
The modal type has been defined without reference to sheep, pigs or poultry because it is considered that variations in the size of these enterprises may be regarded as variations within the modal type rather than as departures from it. Approximately half the fauns (43) carried sheep, but sheep occur on a majority of the farms exceeding 150 acres in size and a ewe flock has been regarded as part of the system on the modal farm. Pigs are found on 73 and poultry on 82 of the 91 modal type farms and are therefore clearly a part of the modal system. We may, however, distinguish as a variant within the modal type those farms where pigs or poultry, or both, play a major part in the farming system; for although these enterprises are largely self-contained and have little effect on the running of the rest of the fain!, their presence will have an appreciable influence on the amount and composition of output and costs. There were 23 farms in the group where pigt and poultry were sufficiently important to be regarded as a major enterprise. The criterion by which these were identified was thas they had not less than 100 "pig units "per farm and not less than 50 "pig units "per 100 acres at 4th June. All pigs were counted as one unit for this purpose and 15 poultry were regarded as equal to 1 pig. Two farms coming just below the standard, where there was reason to suppose the June figures to be unduly low, were included. 15 The modal farm has been based, as regards pigs and poultry, on the 68 farms not specialising in these enterprises. Allowing for the fact that the annual turnover of pigs is likely to be larger than the numbers carried at any one time, it seems reasonable to interpret the average number (on the non-intensive group) of 26 pigs per farm at June 4th as equivalent to 3 sows with the progeny fattened for bacon. This agrees with the frequency distribution in Table 6. Poultry numbers are even more variable than pigs. In putting the modal figure at 100 layers regard has been had to the shape of the frequency distribution and to the fact that the average figure of 212 birds per farm on non-intensive farms includes pullets being reared for flock replacements.
THE EFFECTS OF SIZE ON THE MODAL TYPE OF FARMING It might be expected that size of farm would have some influence on type of farming; and Table 8 shows the average cropping and stocking on four size groups of farms within the modal type. TABLE 8 EFFECT OF SIZE ON THE ORGANISATION OF 91 MODAL TYPE FARMS
Average per 100 acres
50-149 150-249 250-349 350 acres acres acres acres and over
Number of farms 35 34 13 9 Average size ... 96 acres 203 acres 284 acres 550 acres
acres acres acres acres Corn ...... 38 38 35 40 Cash roots •• • 15 16 17 17 Fodder roots, etc. 9 7 8 6 Temporary grass 10 10 13 19 Permanent grass 28 29 27 18
100 100 100 100
Nos. Nos. Nos. Nos. Dairy cows ... - - - - Dther cattle ... 28 24 21 19 Sheep- (ewes) ... 28 22 21 26 Pigs ...... 34 48 25 22 Poultry ...... •297 140 412 55
Sheep, pigs and poultry, which are not found on every farm, are averaged over the farms on which they occur. There is a great deal of similarity in the organisation of all these farms. The proportion of cash roots tends to increase very slightly and the area of fodder roots to decline as the farms get bigger. 16 The proportion of permanent grass declines on the larger farms, but that of temporary grass increases, so that the total percentage under grass remains almost constant. As regards livestock, cattle numbers decrease somewhat as size increases, and sheep show no marked trend. Both pigs and poultry, where numbers are not closely related to acreage, decline per 100 acres as size of farm increases, as is to be expected. The large average number of poultry on the 250-349 acre group appears to interrupt this trend, but in fact more than half of all the birds in this group were on one farm and more than 85 per cent of the total on 3 farms, so that there is no real reversal of the trend. There were farms in each group upon which some of the categories of livestock were absent and these have been omitted from the averages. The proportion of farms on which the various classes of stock were not kept was about the same in each of the groups except that sheep flocks were less common on the smaller farms than on the larger, the proportions being as follows: Totalfarms Farms with sheep Per cent 50-149 acres •• • 35 10 29 150-249 acres •• • 34 17 50 250-349 acres •• • 13 10 77 350 acres and over •• • 9 6 67 All groups ... •• • 91 43 47 It may be assumed, in the light of the figures in Table 8 that the modal type is substantially the same for all sizes of farm over 50 acres and that such variations as are associated with size difference are not of major significance. The size of the modal faun has been taken, for convenience, as 200 acres, which is about the mean size of the modal group. The true modal size is somewhat less than this.
17 VARIATIONS FROM THE MODAL TYPE The system on the modal farm is based upon corn, cash roots and beef cattle. There are three main directions which variation from the mode can take. The system can be increased in intensiveness by the addition of pigs or poultry; a dairy herd may replace some or all of the beef cattle; or the area of arable crops may be reduced, more grass grown and the emphasis on cattle and sheep increased. The first of these possible variants does not (if the other enterprises remain the same) basically alter the farming system and it has therefore been treated as coming within the main modal type, although it has been disregarded in determining the modal farm. The second, dairy farming, is occasionally found on farms which are in other respects modal, but more commonly on those which depend to a greater extent on grass, and mainly on the smaller units. Farms exhibiting the third type of variation—all round reduction in intensiveness—are numerically about equal in importance to the dairy farms. They are mainly mixed farms which are less inten- sively farmed than the mode (i.e. with more grass, less cash roots and more fodder crops), but also include a smaller number of holdings which are almost entirely under grass. Table 9 summarises the distribution of modal and non-modal types among the different size groups. TABLE 9
ANALYSIS OF FARMS BY TYPE AND SIZE All 50-149 150-249 250-349 350 acres All Groupc, acres acres acres and over Groups P'centage Modal farms with % intensive pigs and poultry •• • 5 12 5 1 23 13 Modal farms without intensive pigs and poultry •• • 30 22 8 8 68 38 All Modal-type farms ... 35 34 13 9 91 51
Non-Modal farms (1) With dairy herds Mainly arable 20 7 1 3 31 18 Mainly grass 7 3 1 - 11 6 (2) Without dairy herds Mixed ... 15 8 5 6 34 19 Mainly grass 11 - - - 11 6
All Non-Modal farms ... 53 18 7 9 87 49 18 In discussing these variations it will be convenient to treat each size group separately, for, although the modal system is not greatly influenced by size of faun, this does not apply to the variants, and the pattern of variation depends a good deal upon size.
50-149 Acres. This groups shows the largest degree of variability, about 60 per cent of the fauns being outside the modal type. Since the latter is mainly arable, this is to be expected, small farms tending to lend themselves more to livestock than to arable husbandry. In fact, the modal type itself has a greater bias towards livestock on farms of this size range than in the larger size groups. Of the non- modal farms, half are dairy farms and half have no dairy herds. The 27 dairy farms comprise fifteen which are of modal type apart from their cows, seven mainly grass farms and five relatively unintensive mixed farms. The fauns without dairy herds are mainly mixed farms with cattle or sheep: a few have substantial pig or poultry enterprises. They vary in intensiveness from those which are only just outside the modal type to those almost entirely under grass.
150-249 Acres. As size of faun increases divergence from the modal type becomes less marked. In this group 65 per cent of all farms are of the modal type, and none of the remainder differs from it radically. Of these, ten farms (20 per cent) are dairy farms, four being modal in other respects, whilst six differ only in having more grass and a lower cash root acreage. The remaining eight non-modal type farms (15 per cent) are mixed farms without dairy herds which are less intensive than the modal type. They have from 20 to 40 per cent of corn and from 1 to 8 per cent of cash roots. Most of them have sheep flocks and poultry and several keep pigs.
250-349 Acres. In this group also, 65 per cent of all farms are of modal type. There are two dairy farms (10 per cent of total) one of which is otherwise modal, and the other has rather more grass. The remaining 25 per cent (five farms) are modal in every respect except that their proportion of land under cash roots is lower, ranging from 1 to 9 per cent. The livestock carried on these farms does not differ greatly from that on the modal farms.
350 Acres and over. The. size of these faims ranges from 360 to 800 acres and on such large holdings some reduction in intensiveness is to be expected. Nevertheless, 50 per cent of the farms are sufficiently intensive to qualify for inclusion in the modal group, and the remainder differ only in having relatively smaller acreages under cash roots or corn, or in the presence of dairy herds. Three farms are excluded for the latter reason but are otherwise of modal type, 19 six farms are excluded as being less intensive than the mode, with corn acreages ranging from 16 to 37 per cent and cash roots from 3 to 8 per cent of total area. Some of the farms, in this and other size groups, which are excluded from the modal type are, in fact, non-modal merely by reason of a larger proportion of permanent grass or leys, which proportionately reduces the area of crops: the tillage area itself may be cultivated on a rotation very similar to that of the modal type farms.
20 FINANCIAL:RESULTS OF DIFFERENT FARMING SYSTEMS
STANDARDS FOR COMPARISON We may obtain some idea of the financial results of modal type farming from two sources. First, a number of accounts are available from farms in the survey area, some of them modal and some of variant types. Secondly, there are many farms in other parts of the Vale of York following similar systems, and economic data are available from a number of these.
In order to adapt the material to the actual circumstances of the modal farm,standard or average values for the various enterprises are required. These also provide the means of comparing different systems. Two sets of standards have been calculated, to indicate output and profit levels respectively. Both differ from the normal measures of output and profit because they have been designed to provide the best available comparison of different types of farm organisation. The output figure for crops represents total production and differs from the ordinary definition of output because it assumes that all grain crops are sold. In the case of livestock enterprises the output is calculated net of all concentrated food (purchased or home-grown). In this way allowance is made for two factors which usually interfere with comparisons of different systems, namely, the use of varying proportions of home-grown grain for feeding, and the inflation of gross output by the purchase of large amounts of feeding stuffs. The total output figure for the farm,arrived at in this way,agrees with the net output as normally defined (since the home-grown foods deducted from livestock outputs are added back as crop outputs), except that it has not been thought necessary to make any deduction for purchased seeds. The measure of profitability used is a figure referred to as "gross margin," which is calculated by charging all direct costs of production, but excluding interest on capital, managerial work and overhead costs. It is therefore the same as the profit normally arrived at in enterprise cost studies, if no charge is made for farm overheads. It is considered that this provides the best guide to the relative profitability of different systems. Overhead expenses tend to remain fairly constant with variations of system within the limits found in this area and can, in any case, be more accurately estimated for the farm as a whole than for individual enterprises. Labour has been regarded as a direct cost, not as an overhead expense. For the minor adjustments dealt with in ordinary farm budgeting it is often quite appropriate to treat wages as a fixed cost, but in 21 comparing different farming systems with widely differing labour requirements it would not be realistic to adopt this method. The charges made for overheads have been calculated by reference to the accounts of different farm types, and a figure of 000 per 100 acres has been adopted for the modal farm. Where the system is rendered more intensive by the addition of supplementary enterprises some increase in overhead costs is likely to occur, but this should not be large in amount, and a figure of £550 per 100 acres, which is in line with the data from the farm accounts, has been adopted. On farms which are less intensive, with a smaller proportion of arable cropping, the reduction in overheads appears to be rather larger, owing to the lower machinery charges and the simpler organisation: a figure of &00 per 100 acres has therefore been used for such farms. To complete the comparative standards, an estimate of labour requirements has been made, based on the following schedule: Corn (combined) ... •• • ... 2 man days per acre
Corn (bindered) ... •• • •• • 4 PP PP Cash roots •• • •• • •• • 20
odder roots •• • •• • •• • 15 F PP PP
Temporary grass •• • .• • 11. PP PP Permanent grass ... • •• •• • 1
Cows ••• ••• ••• ••• 18 PP per head
ther cattle •• • •• • .• • 3 O PP PP
wes •• • •• • •• • •• • 11- E PP PP Sows (including progeny fattened) 14 1 Hens •• • •• • •• • •• • 4 PP PP These standards are based mainly on Yorkshire data* with some adjustments from other sources. The figures for temporary and permanent grass have been adjusted to cover the relative proportions of grazing, hay and silage normally found on farms of modal type.
THE MODAL FARM Table 10 shows the standards used and the calculations of output, margin and labour requirements for the modal farm. The data used in this table are derived from enterprise cost studies, but the outputs for crops are based on the average results of Vale of York farms over the three year period from 1956/7 to 1958/9. The figures for corn crops assume proportions of 80 per cent wheat and barley and 20 per cent oats and mixed corn. The cash root area has been divided between potatoes and sugar beet, but carrots, which are of minor importance, have been ignored. The cattle output refers primarily to beef cattle reared and fattened on
* M. C. Mathieson, The Use of Labour in Yorkshire Farming, University of Leeds, Department of Agriculture, 1956 22 TABLE 10
STANDARD OUTPUT, MARGIN AND WORK UNITS MODAL FARM (PER 100 ACRES)
Acres Output Margin Standard Standard Man OY Nos. per unit per unit Output Margin Days
Corn ... 35 32 12 1,120 420 70 Cash roots Potatoes 9 127 42 1,143 378 180 Sugar beet ... 6 68 13 408 78 120 Other crops ... 71 112 Temporary grass 121 19 Permanent grass 30 30
100
Cows ... •• • 85 25
Other cattle •• • 25 24 6 600 150 75
Sheep (ewes) •• • 30 11 5 330 150 45
Pigs (sows) •• • 55 25 83 38 21
Poultry ... •• • 50 1 50 12 12
Standard output (net) • •• •• • •• • 3,734
Standard margin ••• •• • •• • •• • •• • 1,226
Overhead •• • •• • •• • 500 expenses ... •• •
Standard profit (after charging farmer's labour) •• • 726
Standard work units ... •• • •• • •• • •• • •• • 684 the farm, but would not be inappropriate if some purchased stores were included. The standards for sheep and pigs are based upon ewes and sows respectively, since breeding stock is usually found, but on some farms part of the output may consist of purchased stores. All the assumptions made above are in accordance with the actual conditions in the area. The labour requirement of 684 man days per 100 acres, or 1,368 man days for the modal farm,indicates a probable labour force of five men for the latter (one of whom may be the farmer if he does much manual work) plus a certain amount of casual labour for such jobs as potato picking. Some idea of the appropriateness of the standards used may be obtained by comparing the results they yield with the actual results of similar farms. In the Farm Management Survey there are two groups of farms which are somewhat similar to the modal type. 23 These are the Cash Root group which, with an average of over 20 per cent of cash roots, is rather more intensive than the modal farm, and the Mixed group, with only 6 per cent of cash roots, which is less so. If these two groups of farm accounts are taken together, however, they yield a group of some 54 farms, averaging 230 acres in size, which resembles the modal type fairly closely. This group may be compared with the figures in Table 10.
TABLE 11
COMPARISON OF STANDARDS WITH FARM ACCOUNTS (PER 100 ACRES)
54 Farm Accounts 1956-7/58-9 Modal Farm
Acres Actual Standard Standard Standard Standard OY Nos. Output Output Margin Output Margin
Corn ...... 42 911 1,344 504 1,120 420 Cash roots ... 13 1,318 1,356 401 1,551 456 Other crops ... 6 281 Temporary grass 15 Permanent grass 24
100
Cattle ...... 27 952 648 162 600 150 Sheep (ewes) ... 17 206 187 85 330 150 Pigs (sows) ••• 3 558 165 75 83 38 Poultry ...... 108 296 108 27 50 12
Gross output ...... 4,522 Purchased feeds ... 722
Net output ...... 3,800 3,808 3,734
Standard margin ... 1,254 1,226 Overhead expenses 500 500 Profit (after charging farmer's labour) ... 832 754 726
When this is done (Table 11) it is seen that the output and profit compare closely with that of the modal farm. When the output and margins of the group are recalculated at standard figures, the result remains very close to the actual level in output, but diverges somewhat in profit. The level of agreement between the figures is sufficient to give us confidence that the standards used are sufficiently realistic to yield comparisons of value. 24 MODAL FARMS WITH INTENSIVE LIVESTOCK The main purpose of the previous section was to establish standards which could be used for comparing the economic results of different farming systems within the area. The main types of variation from the mode have already been discussed and, in the following sections, a typical example of each of these variants is used as a basis for comparison with the financial results of the modal system. Each example is based on an actual farm, with such minor modifications as seemed desirable to make the comparison clearer. Before dealing with farms which have been excluded from the modal type it will be desirable to consider those modal farms which, by the addition of pig or poultry enterprises, have increased output in such a marked degree that, although their basic farming system may be little changed, their financial, results are substantially altered. Intensive livestock enterprises may be introduced on modal type fauns either in addition to, or in place of extensions of the cash root area. Where the soil is suitable it is common to find both these methods of intensification being practised, but where conditions are less favourable to potato growing, pigs or poultry may be regarded as alternative means of increasing output. Pigs are the more popular for this purpose; 29 per cent of modal type farms had 60 or more pigs per farm and only 10 per cent had 650 poultry or over. The figures included both sows and store pigs and both hens and rearing pullets, but it is probable that a total of 60 pigs on 4th June represents a larger enterprise than 650 poultry, in terms of output. It was clear from Table 6 that pigs and poultry were not confined to the smaller farms—in fact they were more common on holdings of considerable size, and the distribution in the modal group does not differ significantly from that on other farms. Table 12 shows the sort of financial result which might be expected from the addition of a pig unit. On the farm used as an example a gross output of approximately 90 per acre was obtained, but there is, in fact, practically no limit to the increase in output obtainable from enterprises of this kind which make only negligible demands upon available land. We are not here concerned, however, with farms which have attained the level of specialist pig producers, but only with pigs as a supplementary enterprise in a mixed farming system. None of the farms in the area carried more than 650 pigs (on 4th June) and only four exceeded 300. In order to bring out the contrast more clearly the cropping has been kept exactly the same as that on the modal farm, although in practice there is a tendency for these intensively run farms to have a higher proportion of cash roots, and a higher ratio of potatoes to sugar beet. Such modifications of the cropping would still further increase both output and profit. Even at the level shown there is a significant increase in both net output 25 and margin. Since overhead costs do not appear to rise in anything like the same proportion, this is reflected also in an increased profit. TABLE 12
STANDARD OUTPUT, MARGIN AND WORK UNITS MODAL FARM WITH INTENSIVE LIVESTOCK (PER 100 ACRES)
Acres Standard Standard Man or Nos. Output Margin Days
Corn ••• ••• 35 1,120 420 70 Cash roots ••• 15 1,551 456 300 Other crops ••• 71- 112 Temporary grass 12 19 Permanent grass 30 30
100
Cattle ... ••• 25 600 150 75
Pigs (sows) ••• 15 825 375 210
Poultry ... ••• 700 700 175 175
Standard output (net) ••• 4,796
Standard margin ••• ••• ••• ••• 1,576 Overhead expenses ... ••• ••• •• 550 Standard profit (after charging farmer's labour) 1,026
Standard work units ... ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• 991
Compared with the modal farm the levels of increase are: Labour requirement + 45 per cent Net output ... 28 per cent' Profit •• • 41 per cent This increase in profitability and production would involve a certain amount of capital investment in the shape of buildings and working capital. The sows themselves, even if home-reared, would need about 250-000 per 100 acres. To adapt existing buildings for pigs might cost about per pig, and since an additional 12 sows are being kept, housing will need to be provided for about 80 baconers in addition to the sows themselves, if we assume—as is usually the case—that the progeny are finished for bacon. An outlay on buildings of the order of g00 per 100 acres, plus additional short term investment in feedingstuffs might be involved. If we reckon an additional 550 laying hens, costing 15s. each and needing the expenditure of perhaps .400 for housing (at about 15s. per bird), 26 the total investment in fixed capital, including an allowance for equipment would not be far short of £1,600. In addition to this, the extra outlay on feedingstuffs has to be financed and additional labour will be needed equivalent to about half the time of a man per 100 acres, or one extra man on a farm of the modal size of 200 acres. The cost of the extra labour and food has, of course, been allowed for in computing the additional profit, but the interest on capital has to be found out of the profits. Nevertheless, the more intensive system is clearly more profitable than the traditional style of farming and it is not surprising that an increasing number of farmers in the area seems to be adopting it.
MODAL TYPE FARMS WITH DAIRY HERDS An alternative, but less common, way of increasing intensiveness is to add a dairy herd to the modal system, and Table 13 shows the financial results of this style of farming. As before, the figures are based on an actual farm slightly altered to eliminate small differences from the modal type. TABLE 13 STANDARD OUTPUT, MARGIN AND WORK UNITS MODAL FARM WITH DAIRY COWS (PER 100 ACRES)
Acres Standard Standard Man or Nos. Output Margin Days
1,120 420 70 Corn ••• •• • 35 1,551 456 300 Cash roots •• • 15 Other crops ••• 8 120 Temporary grass 30 45 Permanent grass 12 12 100 1,445 425 306 Cows ... •• • 17 480 120 60 Other cattle •• • 20 83 38 21 Pigs (sows) •• • 50 12 12 Poultry ... •• • 50
Standard output (net) ••• 1 4,729
Standard margin ••• ••• ••• • •• 1,471 Overhead expenses ... ••• •• • ••• 550 Standard profit (after charging farmer's labour) 921
•• • 946 • Standard work units ... •• • •• • •• • ••
27 The results obtained are very similar to those of the pig and poultry keepers shown in the previous table. Net output is slightly higher (cows are less dependent on purchased foods), but profit is a little lower and the labour requirement is higher. The method of calculating labour at a flat rate per cow is, however, rather misleading. The 17 cows per 100 acres need the services of a full-time man on this basis. In practice, however, one man could look after a considerably larger herd than this with very little extra help, so that the labour requirement for a larger herd would not increase in proportion. It has been estimated that, on Yorkshire farms, 11 men are required to look after a herd of 35 cows giving 700 gallons of milk*, and this may be taken as the amount of labour needed on a farm of 200 acres at the level shown in the table. The rates of increase, compared with the modal farm are: Labour requirement + 38 per cent (on 100 acres) Net output ... + 27 per cent Profit •• • ± 27 per cent The additional capital investment is likely to be even heavier for cows than for pigs. The herd itself would represent an investment of something like 70 per cow, or say 1,200 per 100 acres. Unless a cowshed is available, an extra outlay of about '500 per 100 acres would probably be incurred in adapting existing buildings, or more if it is necessary to erect new ones. No extra investment would be required in young stock, which would take the place of beef cattle reared on the modal farm, but the cost of establishing a greater acreage of leys would be an additional item on the farm used as an example. Thus, the total investment would be a little more than that required for the pig and poultry enterprise previously considered. Financially, therefore, the two types of farming differ little, and yet, although many farmers are turning towards pigs or poultry, none was found who was considering starting a dairy herd. The reasons for this are discussed below. NON-INTENSIVE MIXED FARMS So far we have been considering farms which have taken steps to increase their outputs above the normal level. It remains to examine the important minority which falls below this standard in output and profitability. In Table 14 an example is given of a type of farm often met with in the area. The general pattern of farming follows the traditional local lines, but at a lower level of intensiveness on the arable side. At the same time more emphasis is placed upon cattle and sheep. On farms of this type it is probable that there may also be some reduction in the level of yields, and the use of standard figures for output and profit may therefore make their results appear rather better than they really are. * M. C. Mathieson, op. cit. page 42 28 TABLE 14
STANDARD OUTPUT, MARGIN AND WORK UNITS NON-INTENSIVE MIXED FARM (PER 100 ACRES)
Acyes Standard Standard Man OY Nos. Output Margin Days
Corn ••• ••• 23 736 276 92 Cash roots (sugar beet) ... 7 476 91 140 Other crops ... 6 90 Temporary grass 10 15 Permanent grass 54 54 100
Cattle ... • • • 30 720 180 90
Sheep (ewes) • • • 50 550 250 75 28 Pigs (sows) •• • 2 110 50 5 Poultry ... •• • 20 20 5
Standard output (net) •• • 2,612
Standard margin ... •• • •• • •• • 852
Overhead expenses ... •• • •• • •• • 400
Standard profit (after charging farmer's labour) 452
Standard work units ... •• • •• • •• • .• 589 • •• • I In the particular farm used for this example there is a moderate cash root acreage; but this is all under sugar beet, which is grown largely because the tops are considered a valuable feed for sheep. Other farms of this type may eliminate cash roots entirely and grow fodder roots in their place; at the same time there is a tendency to increase the proportion of oats in the cereal acreage and to feed more of the corn to stock. Since the stock kept are neither very intensive nor highly profitable, it follows that the whole level of farming is relatively unintensive. Sometimes such farms are found on heavier soils, less suited to intensive cropping, and occasionally there may be drainage problems; but these are not adequate reasons to explain the poor level of results obtained. Compared with the modal faint, the level of intensity is as follows: Labour requirement -- 14 per cent Net output ... — 30 per cent Profit •• • — 38 per cent It will be seen that the reduction in the amount of labour required on the farm is accompanied by a disproportionate loss of income. 29 A 200 acre farm could probably be worked on these lines by three men in addition to the farmer (assuming he worked full-time); but by taking on one extra man it would be possible to bring the cropping and stocking up to the modal level and greatly increase profits. The investment of capital in machinery and equipment, and in fertilisers and labour is lower on these farms than on the modal type, but the investment in livestock is high. It is unlikely, in fact, that the total investment is very much lower than in farms with more intensive arable cropping programmes.
MIXED FARMS WITH DAIRY HERDS When a non-intensive farm of the type described above has a dairy herd instead of rearing only beef cattle, we get the type of organisation illustrated in Table 15.
TABLE 15 STANDARD OUTPUT, MARGIN AND WORK UNITS MIXED FARM WITH DAIRY COWS (PER 100 ACRES)
Acres Standard Standard Man or Nos. Output Margin Days
Corn •• • •• • 15 480 180 60 Other crops ••• 5 75 Permanent grass 80 80
100
Cows ... ••• 20 1,700 500 360
Other cattle ••• 30 720 180 90
Sheep (ewes) ••• 40 440 200 60
Pigs (sows) ••• 3 165 75 42
Poultry ... ••• 100 100 25 25
Standard output (net) ••• 3,605
Standard margin ••• ••• ••• 1,160
Overhead expenses ... ••• ••• •• 400 Standard profit (after charging farmer's labour) 760
Standard work units ... ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• 792
Arable cropping has been still further reduced and, on the farm used for this example,is entirely devoted to growing fodder for stock. 30 The dairy herd is the main enterprise and although some beef stores are reared from surplus calves, the cattle side is mainly devoted to milk production and the rearing of replacements. A ewe flock acts as scavengers after the cows. The introduction of the intensive dairy enterprise converts the low intensity, low profit system into a style of farming comparable to the modal in output, but with the emphasis shifted from arable cropping to livestock. The farms following this system are usually small in size, and are often situated on fairly heavy soils capable of growing good grass. The level of intensity, compared with the mode, is: Labour requirement + 16 per cent Net output ... — 3 per cent Profit •• • 1 per cent The remarks made about labour requirements in connection with modal fauns with dairy herds apply here also. A 100 acre farm of this type would normally be run by two men, including the farmer himself. A common unit is about 50-75 acres with 12-15 cows, managed single handed by the farmer with help from his wife or a son and from casual labour. In rate of return per acre such farms compare favourably with the larger arable farms in the same neighbourhood. Capital investment on such farms is fairly high owing to the presence of the dairy herd. The figure of nearly £2,000 per 100 acres mentioned in connection with modal farms with dairy herds would be equally applicable here, except that arable machinery would be less elaborate (no combine, baler or drier, no sugar beet or potato harvesters and less storage buildings). The total capital invested would probably be higher than on the modal farm, but the much more rapid rate of return from milk, as compared with crops, would partly offset this. In practice, of course, many of these farms are already equipped with buildings for dairying, so the question of capital investment to provide these does not arise.
31 THE CAUSES OF VARIATION PHYSICAL CAUSES The previous sections have shown that there is, in this superficially homogeneous area, a considerable degree of variation in the intensive- ness, type and profitability of farming. This variability is of some importance from the point of view of national policy, since it affects the total volume of food production, the efficiency with which resources are used and the type of response to be expected to price movements between different farm products. It is also of import- ance to the farmers themselves, in its effects on incomes. In the present section, therefore, it is proposed to examine the causes of the variations which are found and to see what factors hinder the more general use of resources at a level close to the optimum of economic efficiency. To begin with, there are certain physical factors which hinder uniformity. Some farms are too heavy in soil type or too badly drained for successful cash root growing and, on others, lack of buildings or water supply may be a hindrance, although rarely a complete bar, to livestock enterprises. Shortage of capital may also limit intensification. But, although such things have an influence, they are certainly not the whole explanation. Unsuitable soils do not prevent the establishment of pig or poultry enterprises or of dairy herds, or the improvement of grassland; and, in fact, few farms were met with in the survey where cash root growing was ruled out solely by unsuitable soil or inadequate drainage. Nor did short- age of capital appear to be a serious limiting factor except on one or two of the smallest farms. Such items of recent investment as new cottages, improvements to the farmhouse or buildings, road repairs or the purchase of new implements or cars were commonly met with on farms of unintensive type. There may be a rather greater reluctance to make use of credit facilities among the less progressive farmers, but this must be classed as an aspect of management and not as a physical limitation to improvement. Tenure is another factor which may influence farming policy; but there was no evidence that it had any effect in determining the way in which the holdings were being managed. Rented and owner- occupied farms were found in all categories. If rented farms changed hands more frequently than those owned by the occupiers there might be some tendency for younger and more energetic farmers to occupy the former, but with the present level of security of tenure it is doubtful if this factor operates to an appreciable extent, and there was certainly no clear evidence of it in the survey. Nor was there anything to suggest that, on rented farms, the amount of rent paid had a significant influence on production; but the evidence available on this point is too scanty to enable definite conclusions to be drawn. 32 MOTIVE IN FARMING Since the variations which occur are not capable of explanation in terms of physical differences of soil, fertility and so on, it becomes necessary to seek an explanation in economic, social and personal factors. It is often assumed that profit maximisation provides an adequate motive for practically all the economic behaviour of farmers. This view confuses means with ends, since profit is not an end in itself but only a means to the satisfaction of other wants. Where standards of living are very low, material needs may be so pressing that their satisfaction becomes the overriding consideration and most of the individual's attention may be focussed on increasing his income. In conditions of reasonable prosperity, however, other motives come into play and, although economic incentives may continue to operate, social and personal factors will become increasingly prominent. One of the most important social influences is that of tradition, which is particularly strong in farming on account of the slow tempo of change in the industry. Systems of farming are the result of a gradual process of adaptation to environment. When physical and economic conditions remain fairly constant over a long period and a system of farming is developed which solves most of the problems they present, that system is likely to become stabilised and to acquire the status of tradition. Farming traditions of this kind, having received general social approval and been accepted as part of the pattern of living of the community, no longer have to be justified by argument; and any attempt to change them arouses a certain amount of protest. Well established traditions give a feeling of security to the individual and provide a basis of common beliefs and practices which encourage social unity. In so far as they are soundly based on adaptation to the environment they may be valuable, but they hinder rapid adjustment to altered circumstances. In addition to economic and social factors, an important deter- minant of policy is the personal character of the fanner himself and the complex pattern of motives, needs, value judgments and emotions which constitute the outlook on life which he has inherited or acquired by experience. These are, indeed, the ultimate basis of all action, and in the present survey we have tried to give weight not only to economic and social incentives, but also to the more personal motives underlying the farming policies described. In discussing these questions in the following sections it will be convenient to deal with the different systems of farming separately.
THE MODAL TYPE The predominance of this particular type of farming in the survey area can be seen fairly clearly as the result of environmental and economic factors, which have gradually led to the establishment of a 33 system well adapted to the local circumstances and now accepted as traditional. Any marked departure from the system, therefore, represents a break with tradition and involves a considerable degree of independence and of conscious planning. This does not mean that those who follow the modal system are doing so blindly; many farmers are well aware of its merits and have adhered to it as a result of a deliberate policy, after weighing the arguments for and against.
The combination of corn and cash root growing, upon which the modal system is based, is in present circumstances the most profitable type of crop rotation. It is made possible in this area by a combin- ation of suitable soil and climate and by proximity to markets and casual labour supplies. The main lines of production are thus largely the result of local circumstances and the other enterprises naturally tend to be those which best fit into the main pattern. Thus, leys have been established for reasons of fertility or crop hygiene, and beef cattle naturally follow as the simplest way of using the grass, and also the arable by-products, and of converting both into fertility via fanayard manure. Sheep may be added for the same purpose and have the further advantage that they can make the best use of beet tops. Most of the farms are level and well laid out and large enough for the fairly high degree of mechanisation which this system requires, although with modern developments in machinery many farmers feel that the optium size is nearer 300 acres than 200 acres, and that the size pattern which was appropriate in the past is no longer satisfactory. There are several towns and large villages in and around the area which offer a convenient supply of casual labour for potato lifting. Harvesting of the sugar beet crop has been largely mechanised and, where hand lifting still continues, it is frequently retained because the- workers appreciate the opportunity of earning extra money by piecework.
The acreage of cash roots associated with the modal type varies. Ten per cent was taken as the minimum proportion in identifying the type, but about 9 per cent of the farms in the group had more than a quarter of their acreage under these crops, a few even exceeding 30 per cent. This increase in the cash root area occurs on farms of all sizes; to some extent it is the result of soils which are particularly suitable for the purpose, but it is also largely dependent upon the outlook of the individual farmer. Potatoes, in particular, can be a very profitable crop, although fluctuations in yields and prices introduce a large element of risk. If they are grown on a large scale the farm, although still modal in type, begins to exhibit features more characteristic of the intensively run farms, discussed in the next section. 34 Sugar beet is a less profitable and less speculative crop than potatoes. It is commonly grown as a partial alternative to the latter in order to lengthen the rotation and reduce risk of eelworm damage. The guaranteed price and the fact that the tops are a useful source of fodder commend it to many farmers. The modal type of farming may be summed up as being soundly based on the needs and opportunities of the area, yet flexible enough to allow a good deal of variety. It offers an adequate level of income and its merits have been demonstrated by long experience, so that it makes a strong appeal to farmers who have been brought up within the tradition and who seek the security which comes from following a familiar and generally accepted system. At the same time, its flexibility and the wide range of modification which is possible render the system acceptable to farmers of widely differing interests and abilities. If the more intensive farms—those with large numbers of pigs or poultry or a high proportion of potatoes—are excluded, the number of modal-type farms operated on more traditional lines was about 35 per cent of all farms over 50 acres in the area.
INTENSIVE FARMS The modal type of farming may be rendered more productive and more profitable by increasing the degree of intensification. It is true that there are some farmers with intensified systems who have failed to make higher profits than others on farms of ordinary modal type. These are the exceptions, however, and both farm accounts and budgets leave no doubt that the probable profit is considerably increased by intensification. Most of the farms in the area are quite capable of adopting one or other of the more profitable systems described in this report, but only about 25 per cent have done so, and we are therefore faced with two questions: first, what are the reasons which have led a minority of farmers to diverge from the traditional system into a more intensive one and, second, why do not other farmers follow suit if by so doing they could increase their profits? Discussions with farmers of both types left no doubt that the answer to those questions lies mainly in the personality and outlook of the farmers concerned. To take the second point first, it became clear that, since the traditional system already gave an adequate income, the majority had little desire to increase profits. Their main objective was security and the maintenance of the way of life to which they were accustomed. They were little influenced by the modern competitive outlook which judges a man by the size of his income and the amount of his possessions, and attached far more importance to continuing to faun in the way they preferred and to the maintenance of their status as good farmers according to traditional standards. 35 The farmers who had developed and intensified their farms, on the other hand, were, as a rule, the men of "progressive" outlook who, for a variety of reasons partly personal and partly social, had broken away from the tradition. One of the factors responsible for this attitude was a more adventurous and individualistic outlook, with a preference for competition and initiative rather than conformity and security, and a scientific rather than an intuitive type of mind. They were men who derived more satisfaction from technical and economic planning, the solving of problems and the overcoming of difficulties than from the exercise of the practical skills of farming or the contemplation of well grown crops or livestock. Both potato growing and pig or poultry keeping appeal to this type of farmer. Potato growing combines an element of risk with the possibility of high profits, and offers scope for a high level of skill in the solution of the many problems which arise in organisation and labour management, as well as opportunity for judgment and acumen in marketing. Pig keeping is an enterprise nearer to scientific factory production than almost any other branch of farming. The planning of rations, the purchase and mixing of ingredients to obtain the fullest advantage of price changes, the weighing of pigs and measure- ment of liveweight gains, the study of litter averages, gradings and so on—all these offer ample scope for the exercise of planning, enterprise and a scientific approach. In addition to these personal factors, the survey showed that social influences also frequently played a part in encouraging a change from traditional ways of farming. Many of the "progressive" farmers came from a wider environment than their neighbours, either because their early backgrounds had been different or because their interest in new ideas had tended to bring them wider and more diverse social contacts. Many of them were comparatively young men; this meant that they had often had better educational opportunities than their elders, and had frequently spent some time away from their native district either at College or University or in employment. It meant also that they had passed their whole lives in an atmosphere of farming prosperity. Those who experienced the depression of the thirties rarely emerged without a permanent bias towards caution and lack of confidence in the future, and a tendency to value security above enterprise. It is true that adversity may force a farmer to make changes in his system, but in normal circumstances an attitude of optimism and confidence in the future is more likely to lead to a deliberately expansionist policy. A farmer whose interests transcend the limits of his own locality now finds himself a member of a community much wider in scope than that in which his ancestors lived, or in which his less progressive neighbours are still living. It consists of other farmers of like mind from a wide area (in some cases national or even international in extent) together with individuals in many other walks of life, 36 scientific, technical and commercial. In taking his place in this more cosmopolitan community, the farmer inevitably accepts some of its standards, although he probably does not entirely abandon the rather different outlook traditional to the countryman. He will, for example, come into contact with a system of value judgments in which greater importance is attached to income and material possessions as symbols of status than is usual in the farming comm- unity. In so far as he accepts these values he will tend to place increased emphasis on the making of profits and will begin to judge his success as a farmer more strictly in financial terms. Intensive farming may be regarded, therefore, partly as a response to the need for greater profit, in order to maintain a certain status in a community in which income is an important symbol of success, and partly as the expression of personal traits involving individualism and enterprise. It did not appear from the data obtained in the survey that the profit motive was predominant even among the most progressive farmers. Their style of living was by no means ostentatious and, although many of them were making quite large incomes, they tended to regard this as a very acceptable accompaniment of the kind of farming they enjoyed rather than as an end in itself. A large part of the profit earned was frequently ploughed back into the faun in the form of improvements to buildings and new equipment; there was certainly no evidence that the largest possible cash income was being squeezed out of the business, as might have been the case had profit been the primary objective. In fact, it appeared that the progressive farmer is still largely carrying on the tradition of his forefathers, to the extent that the maintenance of farming standards is still his principal aim. The difference is that he now interprets "good farming" in terms of efficiency, both technical and economic, and not merely as adherence to a well tried formula. He still seeks the approval and recognition of the community in which he moves, but it is now a wider one. Finally, as a consequence of changing standards, he is more likely to judge his success in terms of income; but, because the methods he adopts are in themselves efficient and profitable, he is not forced to be much concerned with profit as an end in itself. The above remarks apply with much less force to those modal type farms which carry dairy cows instead of pigs. The element of production on scientific, factory" lines (although present) is less marked with cows than with pigs and the long hours of work and lack of holidays are aspects of milk production which do not par- ticularly appeal to the man who regards farming as a business, particularly when equally profitable and less demanding alternative enterprises are available. Consequently a large element of tradition usually seems to enter into the choice of dairying as a subsidiary enterprise on these farms, although this does not prevent it from being carried on at a high level of efficiency in many cases. 37 FARMS WITH DAIRY HERDS The appearance of dairy herds in a predominantly arable area might seem to suggest the operation of deliberate planning based on economic considerations. It is generally accepted that dairy cows make more profitable use of land than beef cattle, and the substitution of a dairy herd for bullocks, either on a modal type farm or on one farmed unintensively, will, as we have seen, be likely to increase output and profit materially. It is interesting to record, therefore, that no case was met with in the survey of an arable farmer who had,in recent years, established a dairy herd, on a farm previously without one, as a consequence of conscious economic planning. Several farmers had started pig keeping on this basis and at least one had got rid of his dairy cows and turned over to pigs, but in spite of the obvious advantages of milk production, cows were not considered as a means of intensifying the system. Tradition undoubtedly plays a very important part in the matter. Nearly all the dairy farms in the district (about 25 per cent of the total) have been farmed with cows for many years, certainly before the present occupiers took over; they were mainly smaller in size than the average and were frequently on land less suitable for cash roots. They represent a tradition of dairy farming which has grown up within the main arable tradition. On some of the smaller farms on heavier land this is probably of long standing, but on the modal type farms it may have resulted from the growth of dairy farming which occurred during the decade of depression in the nineteen thirties. Arable farms were hard hit during this period, but the establishment of the Milk Marketing Board enabled many milk producers to improve their position. With better prospects for arable crops, most of these farms have reverted to a more intensive arable system; but the dairy herds may have been retained in preference to beef cattle, partly because of their greater profitability and partly as a means of spreading the risks of farming and insuring against any future decline in the returns from arable cropping. The importance of tradition in dairy farming is emphasised by the fact that, where the occupiers of such farms were men from outside the district, they had invariably come in from areas where dairying is traditional such as the Pennine dales or the Cleveland hills. Among such newcomers were found the only cases where farms had actually been converted to dairying, two instances being recorded of non-dairy farms being taken over and adapted for milk production. One of these farms had previously grown a considerable acreage of potatoes (although it was probably not ideal potato land), the other had been farmed at a low level of intensiveness with arable crops, beef cattle and sheep. Few of the men who had moved into the district, bringing with them purely dairy farming traditions, had 38 adapted themselves to the wider possibilities of their new environment by exploiting any potentialities their new farms might possess for intensive cropping. The persistence of a dairy farming tradition alongside the main arable tradition is not hard to understand. Previous sections of this report have shown that dairying may be almost as profitable as the modal type of farming. There is, therefore, no strong economic disincentive, and tradition and individual preference become the deciding factors. Dairying does, however, naturally tend to occur mainly on the smaller farms and on those with heavier soils where the economic advantage is greatest. Although some of the modal farms with dairy herds were among the most productive and profitable holdings in the area, there is little to encourage an extension of dairying on arable farms. As an alternative to cropping it has few attractions, since it would involve, for the arable farmer, not merely a break with his tradition, but an additional investment in stock and buildings, a seven days a week routine, labour difficulties (good cowmen are scarce in arable areas) and many other new problems, without offering any increase in profits as an incentive. Nor does dairy farming appeal greatly to the arable man as a supplement to his arable system. Suitable buildings are rarely to be found on the farms, and water supplies to fields and buildings are often inadequate. Moreover, the starting of a dairy herd is a more difficult step to retrace than the keeping of pigs. It is possible to experiment with pigs on a small scale (indeed most farmers have already done so) and build up the size of the unit gradually. This is not the case with cows; a certain minimum herd size is essential for economic working, so that the entry into dairying has to be sudden rather than gradual, especially since buildings need to be of a standard acceptable to the authorities if TT milk is to be produced. All these factors, combined with theY fact that equal profits and probably comparable long term security can be obtained from pigs, explain the trend towards pig keeping rather than dairying on the part of those farmers who wish to expand their businesses.
NON-INTENSIVE FARMS Apart from a few small farms wholly or mainly under grass and carrying only poultry, store cattle or sheep, the holdings in this category were arable or semi-arable faints which were being farmed at a lower level of intensity than those in the modal group. Their profit-making capacity was therefore not being fully exploited. Nevertheless 25 per cent of all the farms were of this type. The economic position of these holdings was illustrated in Table 14 which gave estimates of output and profit for a farm of this kind. We have seen that there are no physical reasons adequate to account for the poor financial results and the study of the farms themselves 39 led, once more, to the conclusion that personal factors were mainly responsible. The group is of particular interest in considering why farmers adopt systems different from those normally followed in their district, even when it is against their economic advantage to do so. Is it mere incompetence, ignorance or laziness, or have they good and sufficient reasons for preferring to farm as they do? Although intelligence and industry cannot be objectively measured there was certainly nothing to indicate that the farmers in this group were less intelligent, industrious or competent than those following the modal system. Certainly few of them would compare with the more progressive minority (those, for instance, who have pushed ahead with intensification) but, if average levels are taken, then a purely subjective assessment, based on contacts with both groups, failed to reveal any marked difference. Indeed, the mere fact of departure from the modal system suggests at least some degree of independence of mind. A certain number of farmers will be found in any district who are unable (as a result of personal deficiencies, ill-health or other causes) to make a success of their holdings. They gradually encroach upon their capital in order to make up for the insufficiency of profits to meet current expenses, until the whole farm is run down and inadequately stocked. A few of the farms in the group we are now considering came into this category, but the majority were well managed and reasonably prosperous. It is necessary, therefore, to ask what are the motives leading to the adoption of a style of farming which largely ignores the economic incentive of profit. The first factor to take into account may be referred to as the family farm attitude. Many of the farms were family units run by a father with the help of a son or sons, or sometimes by brothers in partnership. There were sometimes one or more hired workers, who had frequently been on the farm so long that they, too, had almost become members of the family. Cottages were not always available for additional workers and, in any case, the farmer wanted to avoid the trouble and worry attendant upon labour management on a larger scale. He preferred to adapt his farming methods to the available labour force rather than the reverse. Such a family unit is based on the concept of farming as a" way of life "rather than as a business. Socially it has something to commend it, making for a closely knit family unit bound together by ties of common interest and with values other than purely economic ones. But such a situation has its dangers. If the father is an unduly dominating type, he may use his position to hinder the development of initiative on the part of the children. One does occasionally come across cases where this has occurred and where the sons of such a father have never acquired the power to initiate any new course of action, but have remained, throughout their farming lives, limited to the 40 methods they learnt at home. It may be doubted, however, whether this danger is as great today as it was thirty years ago, and probably most young men with any capacity for initiative will nowadays succeed, by the aid of contacts outside the home, in developing and maintaining a reasonable degree of independence. A second important reason for the persistence of non-intensive farming systems was the fact that many of the farmers concerned were primarily interested in livestock and, although they might be competent managers of arable land, it was from their stock that they derived their real satisfaction and interest. Some of these men (like the dairy farmers already mentioned) had come into the area from districts where livestock are of more importance, but others were local men whose interest had always been the same. Their farming, too, contained a considerable element of "way of life," since they were content to forgo profits in order to follow the system they preferred. This usually included a larger than normal area of permanent pasture, the substitution of oats and fodder roots for sale corn and cash roots, and an increase in stock numbers, consisting usually of beef cattle and sheep, but sometimes dairy cows. But dairy cows are more commonly kept either for maximum profit or for purely traditional reasons and not because of personal preference: few men have a genuine preference for milking twice a day,seven days a week, and most of the farmers we are now considering are definitely workers on their own farms and not merely organisers of labour. Some of these stockmen farmers were progressive men of considerable intelligence, who studied market demand, prices and systems of livestock management keenly. It was not lack of ability which dictated the system of farming they followed, nor was it ignorance of the fact that profits would be higher from possible alternatives. One point should however be added: there was a tendency for men interested in stock to occupy farms on rather heavier land which favoured grass and were less suited to potatoes. The potential profits from other systems of husbandry were consequently rather less on many of these farms. The attributes described above were, of course, frequently combined in a single individual. They also occurred in a third type of outlook which is equally important in determining how a farm shall be run. This manifests itself as a general conservatism and lack of enterprise, but may spring from a combination of different motives. A frequent rationalisation of this attitude is exemplified by the statement that there is no point in earning more profits for the benefit of the Income Tax Collector. It is the outlook of the man who is excessively preoccupied with keeping down cash outlays for wages, fertilisers and feedingstuffs, and is unable to appreciate the losses this will involve in teinis of reduced output and wasteful use of land. It frequently springs from a sense of personal inadequacy and an 41 attitude of fear and distrust towards all change, resulting in a policy of overcaution, suspicion and inaction. A more attractive but sometimes equally inhibiting, aspect of the same general approach is the absence of self-assertiveness which makes it difficult for some men to act the part of the "boss " and causes them to shrink frpm the difficulties of labour organisation. Rather than employ more workers they prefer to work hard themselves and restrict their enterprises to what they can manage with little or no paid help. The conflict between more leisure and more income was rarely in evidence in the enquiries made in the course of the survey. Little reference was made by farmers to the advantages of increased leisure; and it is, in fact, unlikely that the men on non-intensive farms were enjoying more free time than those operating more productive systems—if, indeed, they had as much. They were all working farmers and one of the reasons for their choice of system was that it enabled them to do the kind of work they enjoyed. Farming was their hobby as well as their business and the idea of free time away from it made little appeal. What they did appreciate was the freedom from worry and anxiety which their relatively simple systems offered. The idea of getting involved in all the problems of hiring casual labour, looking after machinery, bargaining with merchants and the rest of the incidental worries of intensive cropping would have filled them with dismay. A simple life, rather than a lazy life, was their aim. Finally, mention may be made of two motives of a less personal character. The first of these is the feeling that the farmer owes a duty to the land in maintaining a high level of fertility. This is partly an attempt to live up to some traditional standard of good farming, partly a vague feeling that it is wise to farm well when times are good so that there may be a reserve in the soil against leaner days, and partly the desire to pass on the farm in good shape to the next generation. Many farmers still believe that cash cropping with the use of heavy applications of artificial fertilisers is liable to endanger fertility, and that it is better for the farm to concentrate on fodder crops and livestock. No doubt these ideas are erroneous when carried to extremes, but they still appear to have some influence, even if only in providing justifications for policies dictated, in reality, by other motives. There was probably a large element of rationalisation, also, in the point made by at least one farmer that people who could make a living without farming too intensively were acting in the public interest in continuing to do so, as they would otherwise be contributing to the over-supply of agricultural commodities and bringing down prices. This point is valid enough, although it is the reverse of the more commonly held view that a farmer benefits the community by increasing the output of food. 42 It is doubtful, however, if it would be made except by occupiers of farms large enough to yield a good living at a low level of intensity, whose personal preferences were for the avoidance of the anxieties and problems of more intensive farming. To sum up, it may be said that the farmers who are operating systems less intensive than the mode are of two types. A minority are men who are incapable of managing any type of farm successfully and who are gradually heading for failure. The majority are following a system which they have chosen deliberately because they prefer it. They have usually been brought up in a somewhat narrow environment and attach great importance to traditional skills and methods and to the family as a social unit. They are averse from novelty and risk, and tend to place an exaggerated value on security. Most of them are men past middle life who find their satisfactions in the exercise of their craft, in growing good crops and, particularly, in producing good stock. Since the job itself is the objective (and not merely a means to other ends) these farmers prefer to do it themselves in company with members of their own family or of old and trusted employees of like mind. The direction of labour and the delegation of work to hired men with whom they have no personal links is something to be avoided as far as possible.
43 CONCLUSIONS
It may be worthwhile to summarise the main conclusions arrived at in this part of the report and to see what is their relevance to some wider questions of agricultural policy. It has been suggested that there is a tendency for agricultural economists and administrators to over-estimate the importance of purely economic factors in deteimining farmers' actions. Most advisory work and many discussions of policy are based on the assumption that the profit motive is supreme. In fact, other social and personal incentives are likely to be of equal importance, particularly in times of prosperity and among the less progressive fanners. Tradition still has considerable influence in an area such as we have been studying, where the traditional systems of farming, established by long custom, are still well adapted to current economic circumstances, so that there is no obvious conflict between economic and social forces. Most men are by nature somewhat conservative, valuing security and an established place in a static community more highly than adventure and experiment; and these traits of human nature favour the maintenance of traditional ways of thought. Nevertheless, modern methods of transport and communication are making themselves felt and not only is an important minority of progressive farmers breaking away from the older standards, but the tradition itself is gradually changing in response to pressures both external and internal. The old order has much to offer. It provides a way of life which satisfies many very fundamental needs, including those for a secure and stable community life, work which provides an outlet for both manual skill and creative instincts, the opportunity to develop family relationships in a shared occupation and simple and acceptable standards of value. Farmers of the old school may well hesitate before accepting an alternative approach to farming based on the pursuit of efficiency and the multiplication of material possessions. Although many of them pay lip service to the profit motive, they do so only as long as it does not involve any radical change in their methods. Even the adoption by the younger and more progressive men of advanced methods is often only part of a new ideal of good farming, one which is more satisfying to their scientific outlook than the old rule of thumb methods. But it is still the job which interests them, and not merely the profit. In discussing the reasons for variations of system a broad dis- tinction has emerged between "progressive" farmers and "traditional " farmers. It may be useful, therefore, to attempt a rough assessment of the numbers of each type. For this purpose, however, the fact that the progressive farmers are only the more extreme examples of a general swing in farming opinion towards 44 modern ideas must be allowed for, and a more useful division is into three rough groups, which we may term "progressives," "semi - progressives" and "unprogressives," according to the degree to which the members have absorbed current standards and outlooks. The first group may be assumed to contain all the intensive farms and about one-third of the dairy farms. If therefore accounts for about 25 per cent of all farms over 50 acres. Group two, consisting of men who are still influenced by tradition but who are ready to change their ways up to a point if they think it is to their advantage, is estimated to contain two-thirds of the modal type fauns and about a third each of the dairy and unintensive mixed groups, giving a total of about 40 per cent of all farms. The "unprogressives " are men who are not interested in" efficiency " as a standard of achieve- ment but prefer to go their own way on traditional lines and to faun to please themselves. This group probably contains about two- thirds of the unintensive farms, one-third of the dairy farms and one-third of the modal type, giving a total of some 35 per cent of all farms. All these divisions are very approximate but they provide a rough quantitative basis to the assessment of farmers' attitudes which we have attempted to make. In considering the implications of all this for agricultural policy, one point immediately arises. The investigation strongly confirms the impression, already gained from experience, that farmers' responses to price changes are highly unpredictable. An industry sensitive to the profit motive would normally increase production of goods in response to increases in price and would tend to abandon those lines which had become less profitable. In farming, the influence of tradition and the exercise of personal choice independ- ently of profit frequently lead producers to respond to price cuts by increasing production in order to maintain incomes at a high enough level to avoid abandoning a chosen enterprise, even although more profitable alternatives may be at hand. Attempts to solve the problem of subsidies by bringing about an all round increase in efficiency, so that profit levels could be maintained even after a reduction in guaranteed prices, are also likely to be ineffective for the same reason. A majority of farmers respond only very slightly to the slogan of "efficiency." Those who do are in most cases already earning profits which leave an adequate margin for price cuts. The most important conclusions to be drawn from the survey are, perhaps, those concerning advisory work, and the problem of how best the advisory services can serve the interests of the whole fanning community. The advisory approach to the farmer is now based almost entirely on the assumption that he is primarily interested in increasing efficiency and raising profits. The result is a good response from progressive farmers (whose objective does approximate 45 to this), but little interest on the part of the old-fashioned farmer who is still influenced largely by non-economic motives. This difficulty is particularly marked in the newer field of farm manage- ment advice, where the emphasis is even more strongly upon profit and the remedies suggested are likely to be even more disruptive of established systems. One of the interesting points emerging from the survey was the readiness of all the farmers, even the most conservative, to discuss their farming with a stranger, provided they were convinced that no attempt was being made to interfere with their policy. They all showed interest in farming problems, and a willingness to look at them from different points of view, but they had strong convictions which they were not prepared to abandon. Contact with these farmers presents little difficulty, however conservative their outlook; the difficulty lies in convincing them that any policy suggested is superior to their own and in overcoming their suspicion of novel ideas. Dealing first with the purely technical aspect of advisory work, we can safely assume that a strong demand will always exist for this from the most progressive minority, and that the majority of semi- progressive farmers will be prepared to make some use of the service. If, however, any impression is to be made on the "unprogressive " group whose outlook is strongly traditional, a different approach is necessary. Advisory officers will need to be more sympathetic to the standards of value which such farmers have adopted and less inclined to assume that the only way of farming is the scientific way which aims at maximum profits. If it were granted that the farmer had a right to chose his own objectives, he might be prepared to accept tactful advice on the best means of achieving them. For example,it may be useless to suggest to an old-fashioned farmer that he should adopt an early weaning system of rearing his calves or that he should instal a combine harvester, because, not only would such ideas be too novel to be considered by him, but he would very likely be quite right to reject them, since changes of this kind might well decrease the satisfaction he derived from his farming and consequently result in an actual reduction in his total welfare. This would be the opposite of the result intended by the advisor, who probably works on the tacit assumption that more profit always means greater welfare. Such a farmer might, however, be willing to accept suggestions for improvements (in feeding or other aspects of calf management for example)if they were kept within the framework of his chosen methods. Moreover he would be much more likely to call in expert advice if he felt that he could count on an attitude of understanding of his point of view, and not be made to feel that his conception of farming, as a way of life satisfactory in itself, was unscientific and in some way inferior. 46 The difficulty is even more acute in advisory work in farm management, for here the whole emphasis of the advice is not so much on improving existing methods as on changes of system, and the incentive offered is almost entirely that of increased profit. Here, again, many progressive farmers find this service valuable because it helps them to make progress in a direction in which they are themselves moving. But there remains the substantial number to whom change is uncongenial and who find the incentive offered inadequate. Many of these men, if they could overcome their initial hesitation, could benefit from farm management advice if it were adapted to their needs and objectives. They would probably be prepared to make modifications in the relative scale of enterprises, or to introduce new enterprises which were congenial to them. Such things as simple work study, to reduce drudgery without sacrificing interest, might also be acceptable. A tactful and sympathetic approach and a readiness to meet the farmer on his own ground and help him to achieve his own aims, instead of imposing other standards on him, would be even more necessary in offering farm management advice than in giving help on technical matters. Part of the reluctance of farmers to approach the advisory services is due to fear, disguised as hostility; many would welcome help if they were convinced that they would not be faced with a demand for a change to an alien and undesired way of life, and made to feel inferior because their standards are not those of the scientific man. Many advisory officers feel that they have quite enough work in dealing with the increasing number of farmers who are willing to accept the kind of advice which they normally offer, and that there is no reason to go out of their way to make contacts with those who do not desire this. No doubt, science must be chiefly concerned with hastening the rate of progress of those who are already moving forward. Nevertheless it would seem worth while to devote some attention to helping the men who still cling to unfashionable values and traditional standards to achieve as fully as possible the objectives they prefer.
47 PART II
HOLDINGS UNDER 50 ACRES An examination of the agricultural returns showed that nearly half the holdings in the area were less than 50 acres in size, and nearly a third (30 per cent) were under 10 acres. The importance of these smallholdings is social rather than purely agricultural, for although their occupants comprise nearly half the farming families, they account for only about 5 per cent of the cultivated land. Nevertheless, the fact that such a large proportion of the total holdings came into this category, in an area which is regarded as consisting primarily of fairly large farms, seemed to warrant a closer examination, and in March 1959 a survey was made of all the holdings under 50 acres in the area. The object was to find out whether they were being farmed full-time or part-time, what systems were being followed and by whom they were occupied. The small holdings are distributed fairly evenly through the area, with rather greater concentration in the parishes near the town of Thirsk, in the larger villages of Topcliffe, Dishforth and Rainton, and in the parishes at the extreme north of the area. Many of the smaller ones are situated in the villages or on their immediate outskirts, but some of the larger holdings, particularly those whose land is com- pactly laid out round the homestead, are outside the villages. It is also fairly common to find the farmhouse and buildings, with a small area of land, situated in the village street, but the rest of the land some distance away, either in a compact block or in scattered fields. Sometimes this is the result of a gradual process of adding field to field to increase the total area,but in other cases the size of the house and buildings suggests that the reverse process has occurred and that what was once a substantial farm has parted with most of its land and been reduced to the status of a smallholding. TABLE 16
SIZE AND NATURE OF SMALLHOLDINGS
0-4.9 5-9.9 10-19.9 20-49.9 . acres acres acres acres All Holdings % Full-time holdings ... 4 5 9 22 40 25 Part-time holdings ... 18 16 6 4 44 27 Houses with land . . 27 7 3 1 38 24 Empty or unidentifiable 1 5 2 - 8 5 Part of larger unit ... 12 3 2 5 22 14 Not seen or refused ... 2 3 1 3 9 5
Total ...... 64 39 23 35 161 100
48 Table 16 summarises the information that was obtained about the nature of the holdings. The acreages shown are those obtained from the occupiers and differ in a few cases from the June returns, but figures from the latter are used for holdings not visited. Only a quarter of the holdings under 50 acres listed in the June returns were full-time farms, a quarter were part time, and about the same proportion consisted of land occupied for residential amenity only and not commercially used. Fourteen per cent had ceased to be occupied as independent holdings at the time of the survey and were being farmed with other land. Three of the occupiers of these holdings had sold all their land to neighbours, three had themselves acquired enough extra land to bring them above the 50 acre limit; the remainder had let. either their land or their entire holdings to larger farmers. Of the nine holdings not recorded only one refused information; four were not interviewed because repeated visits failed to find the occupiers at home and four were gardens or recreation grounds attached to R.A.F. bases or schools. FULL-TIME HOLDINGS Rather more than half the full-time holdings were between 20 and 50 acres in size. There were four of less than 5 acres, which were run as market gardens or pig and poultry holdings. Only two holdings under 20 acres had any crops other than small areas of roots or kale. TABLE 17 TENURE AND LENGTH OF OCCUPATION OF FULL-TIME SMALLHOLDINGS
Under 20-49.9 All 20 acres acres Holdings
Number of holdings ...... 18 22 40 Average acreage ...... 9.1 33.7 22.7
Tenure % % % Owner occupied ...... 61 46 52 Rented ...... 28 27 28 Mixed tenure ...... 11 27 20
" 100 100 100 - Length of occupation 0- 5 years ...... 28 18 22 6-10 years ...... 17 14 16 11-20 years ...... - ... 33 45 40 Over 20 years ...... 22 23 22
100 100 100
Average length of occupation ... 12 years 19 years 16 years
49 More than 70 per cent of the holdings were wholly or partly owned by the occupiers (Table 17), a proportion which varied very little with size. The average length of occupation was 16 years for the holdings as a whole, the period increasing steadily as size increased, from 8-1-- years for those under 10 acres to 19 years for holdings over 20 acres. Some of the occupiers had spent all their lives on their holdings, and in such cases the length of occupancy was reckoned only from the date when they took over control. There has been little change in the size of these holdings in recent years. Of those under 20 acres, only two had increased in size (by 1 acre and 5 acres respectively) within the memory of the present occupiers, and two others had been reduced in size as part of a policy of concentration on intensive livestock. Only one holding under 20 acres rented any additional seasonal grazing. The position on farms between 20 and 50 acres was similar; one had had land compulsorily acquired for military use during the war, one had effected an exchange which, although reducing the acreage, had improved layout, and three had taken over extra land. Four farms in this group (18 per cent) rented extra seasonal grazing of up to about 12 acres. Buildings were, in most cases, adequate and in reasonable condition. A rough assessment of buildings on all the holdings showed 50 per cent to be in good condition, 40 per cent fair, and 10 per cent poor. The standard was slightly higher on the smaller holdings than on the larger ones. Few complaints of ill-drained land were met with, only four farms being badly handicapped in this way. Several drainage jobs of varying scope had been carried out either with or without grant. TABLE 18
LAYOUT AND SYSTEM OF FULL-TIME SMALLHOLDINGS
Under 20-49.9 20 acres acres All Holdings % Layout % % Compact ••• ••• ••• 44 55 50 Scattered ...... 56 45 50
100 100 100
Per cent of holdings with- • Cows ...... 39 82 63 Pigs ...... 56 55 55 Corn ...... 11 68 42 Potatoes or sugar beet ••• - 64 35
Average number of cows on ... holdings with cows ...... 7 11 10
50 Table 18 gives an idea of the layout of the holdings and the system of farming followed. Poultry have not been included in the table since they were found on practically all the holdings, although sometimes only in small numbers. Dairying was the commonest major enterprise, cows being kept on 63 per cent of the holdings. The proportion was naturally higher on the larger ones, of which 80 per cent had herds; but even in the under 20 acres group there were cows on some 40 per cent of the holdings, and some cows were found even on "farms " of less than 10 acres. In the over 20 acre group, arable farming, in the form of corn growing and cash roots, was quite widely practised and occurred on more than a third of the holdings, but cropping was negligible on acreages smaller than this. Most of the larger holdings, in fact, were run on much the same lines as ordinary dairy or mixed farms; and even those between five and twenty acres, although usually confining themselves to livestock, were fairly mixed in system, with pigs and poultry plus either dairy cows or store cattle. Only the very smallest holdings specialised entirely on one line, either market gardening, pigs or poultry. TABLE 19
LABOUR ON FULL-TIME SMALLHOLDINGS
Under 20-49.9 20 acres acres All Holdings
Family workers % % % Per cent of holdings with- ... No family help ••• ••• 50 36 42 Wife helping ...... 28 23 25 Sons or daughters ...... 17 32 25 Other relatives ••• ••• 5 9 8
Hired workers Per cent of holdings with- No hired help ••• ••• 22 9 15 Regular workers ...... 17 27 22 Casual workers ••• ••• 44 59 52 Contract work ••• ••• 28 36 32
Very little regular labour was employed apart from the farmer and his family. Table 19 shows that less than a quarter of the holdings had any regular workers; and these fell mainly into two classes, those working only part-time and those employed on holdings with a large amount of intensive stock (usually poultry), which were really fairly large businesses carried out on small acreages. The majority of the farmers either relied entirely on family labour or employed only casual help at busy times; some made use of contract services 51 for such work as cutting hay and spreading manure. The wife helped with farm work on one in four of the holdings and, particularly on the over 20 acres group, there were sometimes sons or daughters assisting. The more typical picture, however, is of a man working single handed with occasional casual help. Some idea of the degree of success which has attended the efforts of these small cultivators can be obtained by looking back at the history of their holdings over the last ten years (or over the time since they acquired them). This presents on the whole an encour- aging picture. One third of the farmers reported progress in their farming systems over that period,including such things as reseeding, increased livestock numbers, drainage, attestation of dairy herds or all-round increases in output. A similar number (some of them the same farms) have carried out substantial improvements to buildings, including new or improved cow houses, piggeries, electric lighting and farm house improvements. About 40 per cent appear to have made no substantial changes on their holdings, but only a very small number have had to reduce their farming activities. These latter consisted of two men who had given up milk production owing to illness and one who was leaving a 30 acre rented arable farm after 40 years' tenancy for a small grass farm (here again the wife's ill-health was a contributory factor). None of the occupiers showed any signs of having to give up their holdings owing to lack of success; on the contrary, sixteen of them (40 per cent) were
TABLE 20
PREVIOUS OCCUPIERS OF FULL-TIME SMALLHOLDINGS
Under 20-49.9 20 acres acres All Holdings System followed °A °A °A
Grazing...... ••• ••• 25 18 22
Private garden ••• •• • 25 - 13
Same as present system ••• 50 82 65
100 100 100
Number of records ••• •• • 12 11 23 Reasons for leaving °A °A °A
Death ... •• ••• 31 18 23
Retirement .•• ••• ••• 31 29 30
Failure ••• ••• ••• 15 18 17
Other reasons ... ••• ••• 23 35 30
••• 100 100 100
Number of records ... ••• 13 17 30
52 planning expansions or improvements, including such things as keeping more stock, erecting or enlarging cow houses and dutch barns or reseeding. The proportion of men with expansionist plans of this kind was fairly equal on different sizes of holding although rather larger on the bigger acreages. An even longer view of the past history of the holdings is given in Table 20 which shows how they were used before the present occupiers took over, and what happened to their predecessors. The records are not complete and are dependent on the knowledge possessed by the present occupiers, but, on holdings were it was possible to trace the history of their predecessors, it appears that there had been little change in system. A few of the smaller units were formerly private gardens, and some of those now carrying pigs, poultry and dairy cows were previously used for grazing only; but there was no record that any of the holdings now under arable cultivation had been converted from grass by the present occupiers. Half the previous occupiers of whose history we have a record either died on their holdings or retired. Seventeen per cent of them failed to make them pay and left in consequence; 30 per cent left for other reasons, of whom a third took over larger farms. Eight of the holdings (five over 20 acres and three under) were taken over from parents, six of whom had retired and two had died. It was not possible to determine how many of the holdings had previously been worked part-time, but several of them certainly came into this category under their previous tenants. Much of the success of the holdings was probably due to the fact that so many of the smallholders were rural people with a knowledge of the district. Table 21 gives some details of their previous occupations. TABLE 21
PREVIOUS OCCUPATIONS OF FULL-TIME SMALLHOLDERS
Under 20-49.9 20 acres acres All Holdings % % Previous occupation % Farmer ••• ••• ••• 33 63 50 Farmer worker •••• ••• 28 14 20 Gardener ...... 17 5 10 Other occupations ...... 22 18 20 100 100 100
None of the tenants had come to their farms from outside the county and nearly all were from the immediate neighbourhood. 53 Eighty per cent had been farmers, farm workers or gardeners all their lives, and even the minority who had come in from other occupations were mainly from rural backgrounds. Among the "farmers " in the table are included those who, having spent all their working lives on the holdings, had no other previous occupation. It might have been expected, on holdings of this size, that this category would include a number of semi-retired farmers from larger holdings. In fact, the number who had come from bigger farms was only 6 (30 per cent of all the "farmers "). Two of these were on holdings under 20 acres and were semi-retired, the others were all occupying farms of 20 acres or more and had come either because of ill-health or because the break-up of partnerships between brothers or father and son had necessitated a move and left them short of capital. The remainder of the "farmers " had spent their lives either on the one holding or on others of similar acreage. About half the group had, in fact, spent all their working lives on their present holdings. TABLE 22 ADVISORY CONTACTS OF FULL-TIME SMALLHOLDERS Under 20-49.9 20 acres acres All Holdings Contacts with- % % % NAAS (advisory) ...... 33 45 40 NAAS (administrative) ... 17 5 10 Other adflisors ••• ••• 11 14 12 No contacts ...... 39 36 38
100 100 100 Table 22 shows the extent to which the advisory services, both official and otherwise, have been used by the small farmers of the district. Nearly half the occupiers of the larger holdings had made use of the advisory services of the National Agricultural Advisory Service and 14 per cent obtained advice from other sources (National Farmers' Union, commercial firms etc.). Rather fewer of the smallest holders were in contact with such sources of advice (one- third used the N.A.A.S. and one-sixth other advisors). A few who did not have advisory contacts had been in touch with N.A.A.S. officers in connection with subsidy applications, approval of cow sheds and for similar administrative purposes. Nearly 40 per cent of the farmers had felt no need for advice of any sort. PART TIME HOLDINGS The part-time smallholdings were about equal in number to those cultivated full-time; but they were considerably smaller in size, the average being only 8.3 acres (against 22.7). Seventy-seven per cent were below 10 acres (compared with 22 per cent). 54 The proportion of part-time holdings owned by their occupiers was about the same as for full-time farms of corresponding size (Table 23) but the average length of occupation was slightly longer. TABLE 23
TENURE AND LENGTH OF OCCUPATION OF PART-TIME SMALLHOLDINGS
Under 5-9.9 10-49.9 All 5 acres acres acres Holdings
Number of holdings ... 18 16 10 44 Average acreage ...... 2.5 7.1 20.6 8.3 % % % Tenure % Owner occupied ...... 78 44 60 62 Rented ...... 22 37 20 27 Mixed tenure ...... • - 19 20 11 100 100 100 100
Length of occupation 0- 5 years ...... 11 13 20 13 6-10 years ...... 33 19 30 27 11-20 years ...... 28 37 20 30 Over 20 years ...... 28 31 30 30 100 100 100 100
Average length of occupation 15 years 18 years 16 years 16 years
In spite of the small size of the holdings they were by no means all compact in layout, and nearly half of those larger than 5 acres consisted of two or more fields separated from one another (Table 24). Limitation of acreage does not appear to have led the occupiers to hire extra land as a means of increasing their resources,for only two did so, whilst a similar number let their own grazing to others. Two of the smallholders derived some benefit from their situation adjoining the Great North Road, having obtained permission to make hay on the extensive grass verges. The tendency to fragmentation already mentioned reflects the efforts which have been made in the past to increase acreage. Nearly half (46 per cent) of all the occupiers of holdings of 5 acres or more had added extra land since first taking possession. Vigorous attempts have obviously been made to increase the size of these small farms to a more economic level. It is unfortunate that this has resulted, for the most part, not in the amalgamation of scattered fields into more compact holdings but in an increase in fragmentation. The tendency is, however, reversed in the smallest group; there only two holdings had been increased in size (11 per cent) and four had been reduced by the sale of part of the land. The acquisition of 55 extra land seems to be more common among the part-timers than on the farms which are cultivated full-time: this may be due in some measure to the greater amount of capital available when there is an outside source of earnings, and in part to the extreme smallness of many of the part-time holdings. The general condition of the buildings was not quite so good as on the full-time holdings; probably the tenants had less time to attend to routine maintenance and repair. Taking all the part-time holdings together, about 40 per cent had buildings which were classed as in good condition, 40 per cent were fair and the remainder poor; but, in the separate size groups, the standard was definitely higher on the larger holdings. Few complaints were made of the inadequacy of the buildings although in many cases the occupiers had consider- ably improved or extended them since taking possession. Some drainage had also been done and, apart from some small badly drained areas, the land drainage position on most farms appeared to be satisfactory.
TABLE 24
LAYOUT AND SYSTEM OF PART-TIME SMALLHOLDINGS
Under 5-9.9 10-49.9 All 5 acres acres acres Holdings % Layout % % % Compact ...... 100 56 50 73 Scattered ••• ••• — 44 50 27
100 100 100 100 Percent of holdings with— Cattle ...... 33 81 80 62 Pigs ... — — 77 56 40 62 Poultry ...... 89 69 80 80 Arable crops ...... 6 31 10 16
Poultry were the commonest type of livestock on the holdings and pigs were important, particularly on the smaller ones; but the stock kept was by no means confined to these intensive types. Cattle were found on 62 per cent of all holdings and on 80 per cent of those over 5 acres. Of those with cattle, about 60 per cent had dairy cows and rather over half of these were producing milk for sale; the remainder kept cows only to supply the house or rear calves. The 40 per cent of cattle holdings with no cows were divided about equally between those which reared calves and those purchasing store cattle for fattening. Some of these, particularly the latter, kept the cattle mainly to graze down the grass on holdings where the primary object was the intensive production of poultry or pigs. 56 Not much is known about the purposes for which the holdings were used before the present occupiers took them over. It appears, however, that about half of them were cultivated on lines not greatly different from those now being followed and that the remain- der were either not being used for agriculture at all or were used only for grazing. About 35 per cent of the previous occupiers appear to have retired owing to old age or ill-health, a further 20 per cent died and about 15 per cent seem to have given up owing to lack of success, leaving 30 per cent of the holdings which changed hands for other reasons. These figures are all based only on the cases for which information was available (60 per cent of the total) and rely on the knowledge possessed by the present tenants of events before their occupancy commenced. Few radical changes had been made on the holdings since they were taken over by their present occupants. Two-thirds of the latter were still following the system they had used for the past ten years, although a gradual process of consolidation and building up had often occurred. About 11 per cent had made definite improvements, extending buildings, introducing new enterprises or reorganising and expanding previous systems. On the other hand, about 20 per cent were farming less intensively, many of these being the semi-retired men who, with increasing years, were gradually restricting their activities. Enquiries about future plans again showed that the majority were content with their present policy. About half (54 per cent) proposed to carry on as at present. A third of the occupiers (32 per cent of the total), however, were planning definite developments. The majority of these (21 per cent) were hoping to take full-time farms when the opportunity offered, or to become full-time farmers on their present holdings; the remainder expected to continue on a part-time basis but planned to increase their scale of operations, usually by keeping more stock. Only six men were proposing to restrict their activities(14 per cent). Of these, four were retiring because of old age, one was too busy in his other work to give the time necessary to maintain his holding and one had been unsuccessful and was seeking full-time work on a farm. The amount of labour employed on the holdings was naturally very small. One-third of the occupiers were working single handed with no help at all, and two-thirds were without any hired labour. Table 25 shows that the commonest source of extra assistance was the farmer's wife, who helped on a third of the holdings. Only 19 per cent had any regular or casual hired labour. 57 TABLE 25
LABOUR ON PART-TIME SMALLHOLDINGS
Under 5-9.9 10-49.9 All 5 acres acres acres Holdings
Family workers % % % % Percent of holdings with- No family help ...... 28 69 30 43 Wife helping ...... 56 19 20 34 Sons or daughters ... 17 19 40 23 Other relatives ...... 11 - 30 11 Hired workers Percent of holdings with- No hired help ...... 89 44 70 68 Regular workers ••• 6 6 - 5 Casual workers ...... - 31 10 14 Contract work ...... 6 25 20 16
TABLE 26
OTHER OCCUPATIONS OF PART-TIME SMALLHOLDERS
Under 5-9.9 10-49.9 All 5 acres acres acres Holdings % Present occupation (Y % % Retired ...... 22 - 40 18 Farm worker ...... 39 31 - 27 Manual worker ...... 11 13 40 18 Clerical or administrative 17 6 10 12 Technical worker ••• 11 13 - 9 Own business ...... - 37 10* 16
100 100 100 100 Previous occupation Farmer ...... 17 - 50 18 Farm worker ...... 44 25 30 34 Manual worker ...... 22 - 20 14 Clerical or administrative 6 19 - 9 Technical worker ••• 11 19 - 11 Own business ...... 37 - 14
100 100 100 100
Changes on taking holding Same work ...... 56 63 20 50 Different work ...... 22 37 40 32 Retired ...... 22 - 40 18 - 100 100 100 100
58 So far we have considered only the farming activities of the part- time smallholders. With regard to their other occupations, they may be divided into two broad categories: those who worked else- where in order to subsidise their farming, and those whose outside jobs were their main activity and who regarded their holdings as a spare-time hobby. No precise division can be made along these lines but, if we exclude those who are retired or semi-retired, the available evidence suggests that the groups were about equal in numbers. Table 26 shows the types of other work done by the part-timers. It also shows the kind of work they were doing before they took their holdings and gives a rough measure of the proportion who have changed their type of employment. It will be seen that the number of ex-farmers was the same as the number who had retired and these are mainly, but not entirely, the same men. Most of the ex-farm workers have continued in similar work, but a few have turned to other occupations. Taking the holdings as a whole, half the occupiers were still doing the same type of work as before (although not necessarily in the same employment), the amount of change being rather greater among the men on the larger holdings. Half the part-time smallholders have been recruited from the ranks of farmers and farm workers (compared with 80 per cent of the full-timers). The remainder have come,in roughly equal proportions, from clerical and administrative workers, technicians (electricians, engineers etc.) manual workers and self-employed men such as butchers, hauliers, cobblers etc. Approximately half the men were working in full-time jobs off their farms. The remainder were either retired, working part-time or running their own businesses, the proportions in each of these three categories being about equal. Part-time smallholders appear to make little use of the normal sources of technical advice. Only 20 per cent had made any contact with the National Agricultural Advisory Service and only 5 per cent with other advisory agencies. Three-quarters of them made no use at all of advisory assistance apart from what might be derived from neighbours or from the technical press.
HOLDINGS NOT FARMED There remains one type of smallholding to be considered, namely those which are not cultivated by their occupiers for commercial purposes. This is a fairly numerous group (about a third of the total) but not of much importance agriculturally. They are occupied by people whose main concern is with the house as a residence and who are interested in the land only for such amenity purposes as domestic gardening or the keeping of a few poultry, a pony or the like. 59 TABLE 27
TENURE AND LAND USE OF SMALLHOLDINGS NOT FARMED
Under 5-19.9 All 5 acres acres Holdings
Number of holdings ••• ••• 27 11 38 Average acreage ... ••• ••• 2.2 9.0 4.2 Average length of occupation ... 14 years 19 years 15 years Tenure oh Owner °A occupied ••• ••• 64 82 70 Rented ... •• • ••• • •• 36 18 30
100 100 100 Land use Garden only ••• ... •• • 11 8 Some livestock ••• ••• 19 18 18 Land let ••• ••• ••• 37 82 50 Land unused ••• ... ••• 33 24
100 100 100
Table 27 shows that the proportion of these holdings owned by their occupiers and the average length of occupation were about the same as for those already discussed. They were considerably smaller than the other groups, with an average size of only 4.2 acres, and with over 70 per cent below 5 acres. On half of the holdings the land was let, usually to a neighbouring farmer for grazing. A quarter of them made no use of the land at all, except for a small area cultivated as a garden. A few holdings consisted entirely of gardens or ornamental grounds and a number of others had small flocks of domestic poultry or other livestock kept as a hobby.
TABLE 28
OCCUPATIONS OF NON-FARMING SMALLHOLDERS
Under 5-19.9 All 5 acres acres Holdings
Full-time employment % % % Manual ••• ••• ••• 15 9 13 Non-manual ... ••• ••• 18 18 18 Own business ... ••• ••• 11 9 11 Inn-keepers ••• ••• ••• 15 - 11 Retired ... ••• ••• ••• 41 64 47
100 100 100
60 Nearly half the occupiers were "retired " people, in which category we include widows and those who are living on private means and not working. There was a sprinkling of country innkeepers and men self-employed in small businesses. About a third of the holdings were occupied by people in regular full-time employment, and one- third of these again were engaged in manual work; the remainder held a variety of jobs technical, clerical and administrative. There was no suggestion from any of the occupants that they had ambitions to develop their farming activities.
61 THE SMALL FARMER SCHEME
In April 1959 the Government introduced a scheme to give special financial assistance to small farmers who were prepared to carry out plans for the improvement of their holdings. In order to qualify for aid a holding must be between 20 acres and 100 acres in size and must have a standard labour requirement of not more than 450 man-days and not less than 250 man-days (or 275 man-days after the introduction of the proposed improvements). At the end of March 1960 six holdings in the survey area had applied for assistance under the scheme; of these four had been accepted, one rejected and one registered for the supplementary scheme. There has been some discussion as to the suitability of the limits set by the government for eligibility under the scheme, and it may be of interest, therefore, to consider how many of the small farms in the survey area would be eligible. The assessment given below is based on the numbers of livestock and areas of crops on the holdings at the time when they were visited, and the scale of man-day units laid down by the Ministry. The latter differs slightly from the scale used in Part I of this report in dealing with the larger farms. There were 79 full-time or part-time holdings within the survey area which were within the acreage limits of 20-100 acres laid down for the scheme. Fifty-three of these were 50 acres or more in size and have been included in the analysis in Part I of this report; the remaining 26 were smallholdings under 50 acres, and of these 22 were full-time and 4 part-time. Table 29 shows how these holdings were distributed between (a) those eligible on the man-day test (i.e. with between 250 and 450 man-days), (b) those falling below the standard, with less than 250 man-days, and (c) those which were too large to qualify when measured in terms of labour employed. Almost all the modal type farms in the 50-100 acre group were too large, when measured by labour units, to qualify for the scheme. Nearly two-thirds of the non-modal farms in this group were also too large, but most of the remainder would have been eligible. A well nm farm of more than 50 acres in an arable district is obviously unlikely to qualify for aid under the scheme, and the upper limit of acreage will be approached only where farming methods are less intensive. Of the farms below 50 acres, nearly two-thirds of those worked full-time were eligible for grant aid and about a quarter were above the upper labour limit. Only two full-time farms failed to reach the minimum man-day standard. It is clear from these figures that, in this district, whilst a farm of more than 50 acres is likely to support too large a business to come within the scope of the Government's scheme, a large proportion of the 20-50 acre holdings is eligible. 62 TABLE 29
ELIGIBILITY OF HOLDINGS UNDER THE SMALL FARMER SCHEME
Percent with- Total Number 250-450 Under 250 Over 450 man-days man-days man-days
Farms within the limits % % % % of acreage 50-100 acres Modal type ...... 21 5 - 95 Non-modal ...... 32 31 6 63 Total ••• 53 21 4 75
20- 50 acres Part-time ...... 4 - 100 - Full-time ...... 22 64 9 27
Farms below the limits acreage of _ 0- 4.9 acres, full-time 4 25 75 5- 9.9 acres, full-time 5 40 60 - 10-19.9 acres, full-time 9 56 33 11 Total ••• 18 44 50 6
In the light of this conclusion it appears that, by setting the lower limit of acreage at 20 acres, the scheme may be excluding a consider- able number of holdings which are in fact viable units. To test this, an analysis was made of the holdings below 20 acres in size and the results for the full-time holdings are shown in Table 29. None of the part-time holdings under 20 acres had more than 250 man units of labour requirement. The analysis of full-time holdings shows that exactly half were within or above the standard limits of man-days, the proportion naturally increasing with area. Many of these smaller holdings rely heavily upon pigs and poultry, and it may be undesirable, on purely economic grounds, to encourage this type of enterprise, where surplus supplies already threaten to cause marketing problems. On the other hand, if the criterion for aid is to be merely the viability of the enterprise, it would seem that a good case might be made for a reduction in the minimum acreage required for inclusion in the scheme.
63 COMPARISON WITH THE WEST RIDING
It may be of interest to compare the holdings in the present survey, which are situated in a purely rural area in the North Riding, with, smallholdings in the industrial part of the West Riding which formed the subject of an earlier investigation.* The districts in which the two groups of holdings are situated differ in almost every respect. Not only is the West Riding area indust- rialised and the North Riding rural, but the former is bleak and hilly and only suited to grassland, whilst the latter is level and fertile. Consequently the survey area in the West Riding had developed a, tradition of livestock farming, based on milk production supple- mented by pigs and poultry and relying heavily upon purchased foods, which contrasts markedly with the arable system described in the present report. The influence of topography upon type of farming could hardly be more strikingly illustrated. To differences in natural conditions and farming systems is added an equally marked divergence in farm size. The North Riding area, in spite of the large number of smallholdings it contains, is an area of fairly large farms, with 36 per cent of the holdings over 100 acres and only a quarter between 5 and 50 acres. In the West Riding survey area, on the other hand, historical circumstances have led to the formation of innumerable smallholdings, which were formerly cultivated part-time by men engaged in domestic woollen manufacture. Two-thirds of all the holdings surveyed were between 5 and 50 acres and only 2 per cent exceeded 100 acres. In terms of acreage this means that two-thirds of the total land was occupied by holdings of under 50 acres in the West Riding area compared with only 5 per cent in the present survey. The size distribution of holdings within the range of 5 to 50 acres was much the same in both areas except that the North Riding had a higher proportion of very small part- time holdings of less than 10 acres, and consequently a rather higher over-all proportion of part-time to full-time holdings. The difference in farming systems was most marked on the larger holdings, where the contrast between arable farming on the one hand and dairying, rearing and sheep farming on the other was obvious. But on holdings of less than 50 acres there was a common tendency to concentrate on livestock production and a much greater similarity of system occurred. Thus, milk production was found to be the main enterprise of full-time holdings of this size in both areas and pigs and poultry were also of about equal importance. The conditions under which dairying was carried on, however, differed a great deal and the presence of arable cultivation on most of the North Riding holdings also reflected the topographical and climatic difference. On the part-time holdings (common in both areas) the * University of Leeds, Agricultural Economics Section, The Small Farms of Industrial Yorkshire, 1958 64 lack of opportunity for arable cultivation led to an even closer similarity, poultry and pig keeping being the main activities. Poultry were more popular than pigs in the industrial district being, perhaps, less likely to arouse protests from neighbours in a thickly populated area. On the part-time holdings there was a noticeable difference in the sources from which recruitment occurred. In the West Riding, only a third of the occupiers had come from the ranks of farmers or farm workers and nearly half were industrial workers. In the North Riding these proportions were reversed, slightly more than half coming from farming occupations. The same difference was seen in the type of work being done off the farms by part-time farmers. In the West Riding only about 4 per cent worked on farms, whereas in the North Riding the proportion was 27 per cent. The very small farms of the industrial area offer little scope for part-time employ- ment, whereas work can usually be obtained in the nearby towns. The numbers of retired and self-employed occupiers were about the same in each area, leaving over 60 per cent working outside agricul- ture in the West Riding compared with 40 per cent in the North. These comparisons relate to part-time holdings: on full-time holdings there was little difference in the composition of the sample of farmers, and just over three-quarters came from farming back- grounds in each case. There is one important difference which is not brought out by a purely descriptive account of the two areas. The more favourable conditions of soil and climate in the North Riding render the farms there far more prosperous than those in the bleak and infertile hills of the industrial region. The difference is reflected in the more rapid turnover of occupiers in the latter area and is borne out by the results of farm accounts and costings. The farming of the industrialised areas of the Pennines both in the West Riding and also in East Lancashire, is to some extent an anachronism. The holdings were established as part-time farms and were subsidiary to the domestic woollen manufacture, which, before the development of factories, was a thriving industry. After the decay of the domestic industry, they were able to survive because of their proximity to the market created by the growing industrial towns and villages. Here the farmers sold their milk, butter and poultry, supplementing the profits from their tiny holdings by the returns from their work as retailers. When improved transport and stricter control of the sale of milk deprived them of most of the benefits of their situation, they were unable to compete on level terms with producers on larger farms in more favoured districts. Areas like the North Riding, which are relatively remote from urban markets, are now in a much more favourable economic position by reason of the greater fertility of their soils, their better topographical and climatic conditions and the absence of atmospheric pollution. 65 CONCLUSIONS The smallholdings in the area comprise three roughly equal groups, full-time, part-time and those occupied for the sake of the houses and not commercially farmed. All three groups are closely integrated with the local community; their occupants are nearly all local people, many of them closely associated with agriculture. The holdings appear to be serving a useful function and it is by no means clear that any advantage would follow from their amalga- mation into larger units or from the use of their land by neighbours farming on a larger scale. The level of food output per acre is certainly high on the full-time and most of the part-time holdings and no alternative form of land use is likely to bring any advantage in this direction, although some of the holdings not commercially farmed would, no doubt, be more productive if more closely integrated with commercial enterprises. The area of land involved in such cases is however, very small. If the land used for the full-time and part-time holdings is physically productive and is therefore contributing to national food supplies, it still remains to be asked whether it is serving a socially useful purpose. The part-time holdings provide an outlet for the farming interest of their occupants. They also yield a supplementary income, which is particularly valuable to men who are farm or manual workers. For those occupiers who are retired (most of whom are retired farmers) they provide a means of avoiding that complete break with lifelong interests which frequently renders retirement more a burden than a benefit to an active man. On the whole, then, the part-time holdings, cushioned as they are against economic pressures by income from other sources, seem to be serving a useful purpose. They benefit not only those who occupy them but the whole community, for they keep in the villages active individuals who might otherwise leave; thus diversifying and stimulating social life. The position of the small full-time farms is less clear. These are the holdings which have been most strongly criticised on economic grounds and whose amalgamation into larger units is frequently advocated. There can be no question that they suffer by comparison with larger farms in two important respects. First, they are too small to benefit from economies of scale, such as efficient use of machinery, better buying and selling facilities and so on, which are available to larger farms. This is important particularly on arable—and especially corn-growing holdings, where, as a consequence, output per man is likely to compare unfavourably with that on larger farms. Second, limitation of acreage renders a higher relative level of profit per acre necessary on smallholdings if they are to provide for their occupiers incomes equivalent to those on farms of greater size. In spite of these inherent drawbacks, it was not found that the small farmers regarded themselves as a depressed class. It is true 66 that the influence of economic forces has shown itself in the tendency for some of the holdings to be absorbed by larger neighbours (see Table 16), although this was not always due to economic pressure. Those that remained appeared to be reasonably prosperous, and their occupiers were on the whole content. Two points about the small farms are worth remembering. In the first place, it is the most obvious way in which a countryman with a small amount of capital available can become independent. Possibly some of the men visited would earn larger incomes (particularly if measured at a rate per hour) as hired workers, even in agriculture. The satisfactions gained by men of a certain type from being independent are, however, not negligible, and farming is one of the few remaining industries where independence is still possible on a moderate capital. The other point of importance about the small farm is the fact that the men who take these farms look upon themselves, in the main, as manual workers. What they require is sufficient scope to provide full-time occupation for their own labour. Provided the return obtained is sufficient to pay a reasonable wage and leave something over for a modest rate of interest on capital, they are satisfied. In assessing the economic results of such enterprises as dairying or pig and poultry keeping, we are inclined to measure results in terms of the profit left after all labour has been paid for, and to assume that such enterprises cannot be successfully carried on unless this profit is sufficient to remunerate the farmer as well as yielding interest on his capital. On small farms, however,farmer and worker are one and the same person and an enterprise which yields a very narrow margin of profit, in the sense referred to above, may provide a satisfactory rate of return provided it makes effective use of the labour potential of the farmer. Obviously the results will be most satisfactory in those enterprises where the ratio of labour to capital requirement is high and where the size of the enterprise can be accurately adjusted to the labour time available. For this reason livestock enterprises, which are adaptable and yield a quick turnover of capital, are usually better suited to small farms than arable cultivation. On the smallholdings we have been examining,such enterprises predominate. It would seem, therefore, that the smallholding, in spite of its relative economic inefficiency, may have a part to play in the struct- ure of fanning and rural life on account of the fact that it represents a unit upon which the labour of one man can be effectively deployed with the minimum total amount of capital. As soon as the stage is reached where a considerable amount of hired labour is needed to run the holding, the operator begins to pass beyond the stage of worker and enter that of the small-scale entrepreneur. The majority of the holdings in the survey had not reached that stage: they were holdings upon which a manual worker (with a little family or casual assistance) could employ his own labour as an independent individual instead of as an employee of someone else. 67 APPENDIX
LIST OF PARISHES IN THE SURVEY AREA
Ainderby Quernhow Asenby Baldersby Bumeston Carlton Miniott Carthorpe Catton Cundall Dishforth Holme Howe Howgrave Hutton Conyers Kirklington Kirby Hill Marton le Moor Melmerby Middleton Quemhow Norton Conyers Norton le Clay Pickhill Rainton Sand Hutton Sinderby Skipton on Swale Sowerby Sutton Howgrave Topcliffe Wath
68