During the growing season about half the arable area is cereal crops, and of the cereal crop area, more than 65% is wheat.
The total area of agricultural holdings is about 23.07 million acres (9.34 million hectares), of which about a third are arable and most of the rest is grassland.
ĭespite skilled farmers, advanced technology, fertile soil and subsidies, farm earnings are relatively low, mainly due to low prices at the farm gate. There are 212,000 farm holdings, which vary widely in size. It is concentrated in the drier east (for crops) and the wetter west (for livestock). The UK produces less than 60% of the food it consumes.Īgricultural activity occurs in most rural locations. In the sub-sector level, the agriculture (crops, livestock and poultry), hunting and forestry segment, with an average employment share of 30%, has the bigger share than the fishery segment with only a 4% average contribution to total employment for 2008 to 2013.Agriculture in the United Kingdom uses 69% of the country's land area, employs 1.5% of its workforce (476,000 people) and contributes 0.6% of its gross value added ( £9.9 billion). The top contributor for the same period is the services sector, with an average share of more than 50%. The agriculture sector, as a whole, has been the second biggest employment contributor to total employment since 2008, with an average share of 33.65% from 2008 to 2013. The top contributors for the agriculture sub-sector are palay, livestock and poultry, with more than 10% contribution to the total agricultural industry value added share.Īgriculture Value Added Contribution (in percent) YearĪGRICULTURE (crops, livestock and poultry) At the sub-sector level, agriculture (crops, livestock and poultry) has the largest average value added contribution, with an 80% average share from 2008 to 2013, whereas the fishery sector has the lowest contribution, with only a marginal average share of 0.6% for the same period. The value added share of agriculture to GDP has been the lowest among the three major sectors of the economy since 2008. Source: Bureau of Agricultural Statistics Value Added Growth Performance (in percent) Year In this sub-sector, the cassava and poultry segments, which have registered average value added growth rates of more or less 4%, are the top performers. The forestry sector contracted, on the average, by 0.3% during the same period. It is followed by the agriculture (crops, livestock and poultry) sub-sector, with an average value added growth of 1.4%. At the sub-sector level, the fishery sector has registered the fastest growth of the three components, with an average value added growth of 9.2% from 2009 to 2013.
The agricultural sector, as a whole, has only grown by an average of 1.1% in the last five years in terms of value added.