Farm Income Figures November 12, 2013 12:00 am Most sectors of agriculture saw a fall in profits in 2012/13 compared to the previous year. This is according to the latest Farm Business Survey (FBS) results released by DEFRA. These results relate to England and update the provisional ones released earlier in the year (see February article). The FBS works on February/March year ends so the period being reported covers harvest 2012 and the dismal 2012/13 winter. The full release can be found at – https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/farm-business-survey The measure shown is Farm Busines Income (FBI). This can be thought of as the average farm profitability for the sector. The headline points show that Cereals farms saw returns fall by 30% in real terms year-on-year. Dairy farms’ profitability dropped 43% between 2011/12 and 2012/13. Grazing Livestock farmers in the lowland and LFA are reported to have seen their FBI drop by 50% and 35% respectively. The figures for the years 2007/08 to the present year are shown on the chart below. Those for 2013/14 are Andersons predictions – the DEFRA estimates will be published in January. Also shown on the chart is a breakdown for the two years 2011/12 and 2012/13. This shows how the total farm profit for each farm type is made up, based on four ‘profit centres’. For Cereals and Dairy farms the drop in profit from agriculture in 2012/13 can be clearly seen. The agricultural activity on both types of Grazing Livestock farm was loss-making last year. It took the Single Payment to bring these farms back into profit.
