December Survey of Agriculture 2009

The December Survey of Agriculture in England 2009 gives data showing the winter crops areas and livestock numbers of agricultural holdings in England as of 1 December 2009.

The area of wheat sown by 1 December 2009 increased by 10.9% on 2008 to 1.8m hectares. The winter OSR area increased by 9% to 589 thousand hectares from 541 thousand hectares and winter barley decreased 4.8% to 342 thousand hectares. Oats and field beans increased to 83 and 88 thousand hectares respectively. The area of arable land intended to be left out of production in 2009/10 is 226 thousand hectares more or less unchanged from 2009.

Hay production increased in 2009 by 6.3% to 2.2m tonnes. Silage production from grass decreased by 2.4% to18.4m tonnes. Silage produced from other crops increased by 4.2% to 4.6m tonnes.

There were a total of 5.5m cattle and calves in England in December 2009. An increase of 1% from 5.4m in 2008. The dairy herd decreased by 1.4% to 1.2m which offset an increase in the beef herd of 1.1% to 731,000. The total breeding herd remained more or less unchanged at 1.9m.

The total number of pigs in England in 2009 increased by 1.3% from 3.7m in 2008 to 3.8m in 2009. The number of breeding pigs increased by 4% to 438,000 in December 2009 from 354,000 in 2008. Fattening pigs increased to 3.3m. The increased numbers may be due partly to lower costs and steady prices which has resulted in amny producers seeing profits.

Sheep and lambs in England decreased by 3.8% to 9.9m in 2009. The female breeding flock decreased by 2.2% to 6.2m continuing a downward trend beginning in 2004. Sheep prices have remained good but supply has been reduced due to the reduction in the size of the breeding flock.

Cattle, Sheep And Pigs

The laws and principles discovered and developed by Mendel have been applied to animal breeding. The most controversial example in recent years of the kind of perversion of Mendel's Laws we occasionally come across being Dolly the Sheep. Cloning is not a new practice. In plant breeding clones have been developed and used for decades in developing new strains of cereals and other plants. It does not go without question. There are ethical questions about the biotechnology that is applied to plants and animals and humans.

The ethical debates about livestock farming and developments in husbandry have been going on for years. Animal welfare is a great concern for good farmers and animal lovers. Housing concerns have been expressed about farm livestock not least in the case of veal crates. Keeping animals in cramped and uncomfortable conditions is cruel and it is bad husbandry. It can be very stressful for the animals involved. It lowers the quality of whatever life they have and lowers their market value. Only the best husbandry practices are recommended for keeping farm livestock.

Some of the ethical questions argued about in agriculture have eventually come up in wider society in other contexts. Some agricultural practices are passed on to practitioners in other branches of science and the principles applied to humans. The most well known are things like artificial insemination, embryonic transfer, surrogacy and cloning. There are many more. It is a serious debate about the future of farming and the future of society as a whole as what is practiced in one is occassionally practiced in the other. Agriculture sometimes seems like a laboratory for experiments in social engineering. Monkeys and mice, cattle, sheep and pigs.