THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (LONDON) / January 15, 2000, Saturday / By Rupert Segar
On his family farm near St Helens on Merseyside, Johnny Ball looks out over empty fields. He used to keep beef cattle and sheep, but has been forced to sell them. "They went for nothing," he says. He is still growing some wheat and barley on the 130-acre farm that he rents from the Earl of Derby's estate. But the bank is getting tough. His overdraft limit has been cut and the interest rate put up. He says he has no alternative but to quit.
"My family has been on this estate for 400 years," he says. "Now I will be starting from scratch. After 35 years of hard work, I have nothing: no savings, no pension, no prospects.
"I am not alone. I know lots of farmers who are on the edge, wondering how much longer they can stay on the land."
Farmers and farm workers are facing the worst recession in living memory. Every sector of agriculture is failing at once (unless you are growing sugar beet or potted plants). For four years, incomes have plummeted; last year 18,000 people quit the business. Over the next 10 years, an estimated 100,000 people will leave the land, a quarter of the workforce.
BSE, falling world cereal prices, free trade, increased competition and the strong pound are all blamed for the current crisis. But Sean Rickard, a former chief economics adviser to the National Farmers' Union, says that the underlying problem is overmanning and inefficiency. "You could take a third of the workforce out of farming and not notice the difference."
Rickard, who is now at the Cranfield School of Management, says that as the crisis continues, the industry will be forced to change. "Farming is going through a shake-out in much the same way as the manufacturing industry did in the 1980s," he says. "At the end of that decade, 25 per cent of Britain's manufacturing capacity had gone to the wall."
The shake-out in farming has already begun. The Ministry of Agriculture's census of farmers and farm workers in England shows that one in 12 jobs in farming were lost in the year to June 1999 -- 18,000 people.
Last year, Michael Cook sold 310 acres of good arable land with a few sheep between Worcester and Stratford. "The business was sound," he says. "But with a mortgage and overdraft and the way cereal prices were going, it was too risky. Any business can take a loss for a while, but there was no end in sight. I could either quit and save my capital or soldier on and lose it all."
He spent a year agonising. "It was the hardest decision in my life. I have a son who wanted to follow me, but he had to be dissuaded. The future for farming is too grim. To any farmer in my position I'd say: 'Get out now, while you can.'"
For more than 1,000 pig farmers, it is already too late. The pig industry seems to be a barometer for the rest. Producers are losing the battle against cheap meat imports and red tape. In the past 12 months, a third of British pig farmers have gone out of business.
"We are in meltdown," says Mike Sheldon of the National Pig Association, "and unless there are radical changes then I can see there being virtually no British pig farmers left."
Pig farming is labour-intensive. For every farmer going out of business, eight or nine workers will lose their jobs. Michael de Selincourt was the farm manager on an outdoor unit in Oxfordshire until late last year. "This is the third job I've lost in five years because of the agricultural crisis. I'm beginning to wonder whether there is any future in farming," he says.
Rickard says there is a future for agriculture, but not for all the people currently employed. "It is inevitable that people will have to go as new knowledge and technologies are applied to farming. Take the dairy industry. After the Second World War there were 200,000 dairy farmers. Today there are fewer than 30,000 and in 10 years there will be half that number. Those farmers who are left will have bigger herds, producing more milk at lower prices."
Hugh Richards sold all 80 of his cows last year. This fifth-generation farmer with 200 acres near Llanelli says he had no choice. "I was losing money on every pint of milk I sold. The calves the cows produced were worse than worthless. Five went to the hunt kennels and I swapped three others for sacks of potatoes."
He refuses to sell his land. He still has 300 ewes, which brings him the "brown envelope" -- hill farmers' slang for their subsidies. It may allow his farm to survive, but only just.
Last year, hill farmers received an average of pounds 24,000 each in grants and subsidies, yet average income -- the profits left after running the business -- was less than pounds 2,000. "If these were steel-makers or coal mines," says Rickard, "no one would consider subsidising such highly inefficient businesses. Until now, farmers have been protected, but this Government is already calling for the whole system to be changed."
Farmers have an almost superstitious attachment to the land. No one likes selling even an acre. The idea of leaving the land altogether is unthinkable. And the farmers running the most vulnerable business, the small family farms, are the least likely to consider quitting. "When you lose your job, you've still got a house," says Richards. "When you lose your farm, you lose everything: home, occupation and status."
Rickard says many will have no choice. "Severe economic pressures will squeeze out farmers who are not viable and will force the survivors to become more efficient." As many as 100,000 farmers and farm workers may have to go.
For some, that decision has come early. "My entire working life has been on the land. I know nothing else," says Michael Cook. "Now I have sold the farm I don't know what I can do. But I do know it was the right decision."
"I have a son and daughter both at agricultural college," says Ball, who now faces the prospect of having to sell up himself. "But there is little future for them in farming and none at all for me."
Copyright 2000 Telegraph Group Limited:
