Farm incomes - A welcome income rise

It is good news, however short-lived, that farm incomes rose by almost a third last year.

Though workers in many other sectors might envy this almost unimaginable leap in pay it must be accepted that this improvement follows a number of very difficult years in farming’s ever-changing cycle.

This positive news is overshadowed by the fact that only about a third of farms can ever be economically viable. This suggests that our cultural and often irrational attachment to the land will have to be underpinned for approximately 33,000 farms by farm payments or one kind or another.