The Top 10 Agricultural Products Of The United Kingdom

wheat farming in united kingdom

In the scotland, 35% of agricultural land is arable, and the agricultural sector is a source of employment to approximately 470,000 people. The United Kingdom produces less than 65% of the food it consumes. Agricultural activities in the country mostly occur in rural areas. However, it is more concentrated in the South West and East Anglia, in the east of England. The country has about 212,000 farm holdings which vary in size from below 20 hectares to over 100 hectares. In spite of the United Kingdom having fertile soil, skilled farmer’s subsidies, and high technology, profits made from agriculture are relatively low as a result of low prices at the farm gate. Young people in the country are discouraged from venturing into the agricultural industry because of inadequate farmland, low earnings, and high land prices. Currently, 59 years is the average age of the British farm holder. Organic farming has been introduced to the country to keep up profit rates. There has been an increased awareness in the country on the importance of farming and the role that farmers play in the country's economy and wildlife preservation.

A brief history of agriculture in the UK by Professor John Wibberley

Introduction

The term ‘agriculture’ is of seventeenth-century origin (Latin agricultura) a derivation which combines ager (land, field) with cultura (culture). The word ‘culture’ itself is interesting, deriving from cultus (cultivation) and colere (to till, to cultivate, to ‘worship’ - as in ‘cult’). Thus the word ‘agriculture’ includes ideas of physical land, land as a total context for human activity, and land as spiritually significant. However the word has come to be more narrowly understood by most to mean simply the techniques of physical land cultivation to raise crops and livestock.

In some nations, agriculture means ‘crop cultivation’ and livestock production is seen as a separate enterprise. In England, ‘agriculture’ means both crops and livestock but its crops are differentiated. Horticulture is cropping of vegetables and fruits on a smaller scale or as flowers and ornamental plants. Forestry is growing trees for timber and other products. In the tropics generally such distinctions are less used and a more integrated approach to farming systems is usual.

Agricultural

origins Archaeological evidence points to the so-called ‘Fertile Crescent’ zone of the Middle East (running from modern- day Iraq to Egypt) as the area of first domestication of wild grasses as cereals (notably wheat and barley) between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.

The classical tradition in agriculture is represented by various characters who show their appreciation of the technical, economic and philosophical aspects of the subject. Theophrastus (287 BC) wrote ‘The earth may seem cold, but if it is inverted, it becomes free, light and clear of weeds, so it can most easily afford nourishment’. Cicero (104-43 BC) averred ‘of all the occupations by which gain is secured, none is better than agriculture, none more profitable, none more delightful, none more becoming to a free man’ (De Officiis 1.51) while Horace (65-8 BC) observed, ‘Happy the man who, far from schemes of business,like the early generations of mankind, ploughs and ploughs again his ancestral land with oxen of his own breeding, with no yoke of usury about his neck!’ Virgil (70-19 BC) in his ‘Georgics’ appears to address issues of husbandry (bees, trees, cattle and crops) but he does so in conjunction with both political and spiritual aspirations.

Rank	Agricultural Product	Production (volume in metric tons)
1	Milk (cow)	13,884,000
2	Cattle meat	882,000
3	Chicken meat	1,396,830
4	Pig meat	770,150
5	Wheat	13,261,000
6	Sheep meat	285,000
7	Potatoes	4,553,000
8	Rapeseed	2,557,000
9	Hen eggs	630,000
10	Sugar beet	7,291,000