Yesterday (Thursday) I had the pleasure of attending one of the Andersons spring seminars at Salisbury racecourse on Opportunities in a Changing Agriculture.
Surprisingly it was the first of these annual events I'd been to - and sadly one of the last that well-known agricultural consultant and analyst Francis Mordaunt would be giving before his impending retirement.
Explaining complicated issues in simple and engaging terms is a gift, and one that Francis has in abundance.
In just 30 minutes he gave a crash course on the current state of British agriculture, encompassing most of the external factors affecting it, giving an assessment of the health of the industry and providing some useful pointers as to where we might be heading.
The key points were as follows:
* UK farming has weathered the recession better than most sectors. Total Income From Farming (TIFF) in 2008 and 2009 came to over £4bn each year - well up on the £2-3bn seen in the previous eight years.
* At this level, TIFF was finally in excess of direct payments, showing that farming is making a small profit even without subsidy...
UK agriculture was the best performer in the European league table of farm incomes in 2009. EU farm income figures from Brussels show that the UK is just one of four member states to have seen an increase in farm income in 2009 - thanks in large part to the weakness of sterling. Provisional figures put us up 14%, compared with a 35% decline for Hungary, 25% decline for Italy and 20% declines for France and Germany. DEFRA predicts an 8% fall in UK farm income in 2010, but it will still top £4bn - the second best result in a decade...