Farm Practices Survey indicates innovation is on the minds of UK farmers
The 2018 survey largely focused on practices relating to how farmers run their farm businesses. Topics covered include innovation, market prices, risk management, grants and payments, collaboration, use of accounting packages and soil management.
8 April 2019
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40 percent of farms indicated that they did not have all the risk management tools that they needed to manage price risks for their business.
The most commonly selected barriers, by around a third of farms were “high insurance premiums”, “Risk management tools not suitable or too expensive”, “Lack of knowledge or skills” and “Difficullty in implementation”. © Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Almost all farms that collaborated in 2018 reported that they had been undertaking these activities for at least a year.
(a) In 2016 these categories were separated into formal and informal arrangements.
(b) Included co-ops in 2016.
(c) Membership of discussion groups only in 2016.
(d) Collected separately for crops and livestock in 2016.
(e) Collected as Environmental management (eg joint agri-environment scheme agreement) in 2016.
*Note: In 2018 farms were asked which of these practices in the last year and for longer than a year. This might have led to a different response to farmers compared to 2016. Farms could select more than one option.
© Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
