The Business Climate Indicator (BCI) of the European Commission Director General of Economic and Financial Affairs decreased by 0.15 points to -0.94. The decline was mainly driven by managers' negative assessments of production expectations, past production, overall order books and export order books. Their assessments of stocks of finished products remained unchanged.

Agricultural Labour 2010

There were 293,000 people working on commercial agricultural holdings in 2010 unchanged from 2009 compared with the 312,000 in 2008. There was a total of 170,000 farmers, partners directors and spouses, up 3% on 2009. There were 11,000 salaried managers, an increase of 1% on 2009. The other 112,000 workers (-4%) included 47,000 full-time workers (+3%), 28,000 part-time workers (-4%) and 37,000 casual workers (-12%).

A comparison can also be made between those working on "commercial" holdings and the total for "all" holdings in 2009. The total number of people working on "all" holdings in 2009 was 363,000. Farmers, partners, directors and spouses totalled 223,000 compared with 165,000, salaried managers totalled 12,000 on "all" holdings compared with 10,000 working on "commercial" holdings. Other workers totalled 128,00 on "all" holdings and 117,000 on "commercial" holdings.

Final June Agricultural Survey Results, England 2009

The final June Survey results for England were released by DEFRA and ONS on 19 November 2009. Some of the key results were that the total area of agricultural holdings in England has increased to 9.4m hectares since 2008. The total croppable area is estimated at 4.9m hectares. The area cropped has fallen to 3.99m hectares but the total land out of arable production stands at 231,000 hectares. Fruit and vegetables grown outdoors account for 140,000 hectares, up 2% on 2008. Common rough grazing stands at 427,900 ha. The total agricultural area has increased in size again this year to 9.8m ha.

Owner occupied land is largely the same as 2008 at 6.3m ha. Land rented for more than a year is also unchanged at 3.3m ha. The area under Full Agricultural Tenancy agreements (FAT) continued to decrease, by 2.9%, to 1,680,900 ha and Farm Business Tenancies have increased 3.8% to 1,094,400 ha. Other agreements have risen to 497,800 ha, up 2.2%.

The national herd of cattle remained at around 5.5m according to the Cattle Tracing Scheme. There were 3.9m pigs, up 0.5%. These included 444,000 breeding pigs. The national sheep flock was 14,984,000 sheep and lambs, down 3.5% on June 2008. The female breeding flock of 6,672,000, down 5.1% on last year, included 5,550,000 ewes for further breeding and 797,00 first time breeding ewes. 326,000 ewes were intended for slaughter. Rams totalled 171,000, down 5.4% on 2008.

The total number of people employed in agricultural was 363,000 up nearly 3,000 from last year. These included 223,000 farmers, business partners, directors and spouses of which 127,200 were part-time, 11,900 salaried managers and 127,800 other workers, 49,400 of which were full-time, the rest part-time or seasonal/casual or gang workers.