What does being ‘a farmer’ mean to you? For those that have experienced it, the job – or lifestyle, really – the answer might be early mornings, long days, and little pay. Others imagine farming to be more like living the good life.
Perhaps that’s the reason why a recent report, commissioned by the Prince’s Countryside Trust, revealed that twenty five per cent of adults questioned quite like the sound of giving up their day job and taking up farming instead. The economics of the profession might make them think again, however.
The most startling fact from the report is the gap between the general public’s estimates of a farmer’s income, and the reality. 10 per cent of those questioned thought that farmers earned on average over £75,000 per year. 60 per cent estimated that the average farmer’s salary was higher than the £20,000 that it really is. And bear in mind that, according to the latest ONS stats, the average UK salary is just over £28,000. Is it any wonder that so many farmers are turning to other income areas to help top-up their incomes, be that selling renewable energy, renting out spare space, or doing bed and breakfast? As Robin Milton, an Exmoor sheep farmer, explained: ‘While the way of life may be envied, the income will not – the turnover of a 250-ewe flock is less than the average national wage, and that is before any costs are taken into account’.
The realities of farming are again born out by the fact that only 3% of farmers are under 35, and that the average age of a British farmer is 59. But if so many people are keen to give up their jobs for a life in the agriculture industry, why is it the case that so few young people want to take up farming as a career?
It would appear that there is something of an image problem here. When you hear about the recipients of money from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy in the papers, it tends to be the high-end beneficiaries who are mentioned. So we hear, time and time again, that the likes of the Queen, the Duke of Northumberland, and racing enthusiast and billionaire Prince Khalid Abdullah al Saud each receive hundreds of thousands from the EU’s agricultural payments scheme. (This, of course, is the main problem that many people, including Defra minister Michael Gove, have with CAP; it rewards people for the amount of land they own, not what they do with it.)
Last year, the agri-food sector contributed £108 billion to the UK economy, and most people think it’s important that the UK is able to produce its own food, whether or not we manage to negotiate excellent global trade deals post-Brexit. But while so many people continue to have a rose-tinted vision of the lifestyle that farming demands, it’s hard to drum up the support for farming that the industry so badly needs.
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