Internet access has risen by 13 percentage points since 2007.  So it’s now estimated that over four-fifths of farmers have access to the web.  There are variations by enterprise type with Internet access estimated to be up in the 90s for larger farms. If we start with our base of just over 100,000 farms, around 83,000 have internet access with 77,000 saying that they use the web for the farm business.  And drilling down further just over 42,000 farmers are using agricultural websites on a regular basis.

Website usage has increased across the board with Defra, FWi.co.uk and BCMS all being used by over half of the farmers with Internet access.  Of these sites FWi .co.uk was the preferred website overall in helping to run the farm business. And we see much greater use of these sites amongst those farms with 200+ hectares, with around two thirds using Fwi.co.uk.

Average Issue Readership also known as A.I.R estimates the coverage of a publication in the market. It’s different from circulation figures, as it reflects the proportion of people who have actually ‘read’ or ‘looked at’ a copy of a title within it’s publishing period.   For example weekly, or monthly.

Looking at trends  by enterprise type, Farmers Weekly remains strong in the arable market whereas the gap is slightly closer in the livestock sectors. And this pattern is seen again when we look at larger farms by enterprise type.

And looking at trends by region, Farmers Weekly leads in all regions with particular strength in the Eastern and South East areas of the country, but also in the North.  Around half (53%) of AIR Farmers Guardian readers are also AIR of Farmers Weekly.

There were 2 publications covered in the 2011 survey, Crops and Crop Production Magazine, that are specifically aimed at the arable market. In comparison to the AIR estimates in 2007, which took place just after the closure of Arable Farming, both of these titles appear to have benefited, with this year’s analysis indicating higher AIR scores amongst arable farmers. And we see a correlation between AIR and farm size for both titles.

Given the competitive nature of the print market, an important differentiator to look at is the title providing the most overall value in helping the farmer to run their farm business.

Farmers Weekly is considered to be the publication providing the best coverage across a broad range of editorial topics, in particular news about farming, market prices, crop protection chemicals and machinery/equipment.

The Farmers Weekly portfolio has a range of products in different market sectors. There is overlap within the different media so the agency has calculated the combined coverage to help us understand more about our total footprint in the market.  85% of the total sample consumes at least one of the five Farmers Weekly products listed, rising to 93% in  the largest farms.

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