Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
The overall aim of the research was to assess the influence of changes in agricultural policy and regulation on those farms which, during the productivist era, their operators had successfully navigated to a position of dominance in the industry. Four specific objectives arose from this broad aim, which sought to examine large-scale commercial farming overall and to track development and succession on individual matched farms: to investigate how farms, which were relatively large in 1977, subsequently developed during the period of agricultural policy adjustment in the 1980s/1990s; to examine the dynamics of agricultural production systems in relation to the development of large-scale farm businesses between 1941 and the late 1990s; to investigate the opinions and responses of these large-scale farmers to agricultural policy adjustment with the intention of establishing their level of engagement with post-productivity policy measures; to contribute to the development of large-scale farm businesses in the light of the post-productivist transition model of farm business adjustment and agri-environmental change. The data file for 1978 and 1981 for this study contains a subset of the variables from part of the dataset 'Labour and Machinery on Large Arable Farms, 1978-1980', held at the UK Data Archive under SN:1872.
Main Topics:
The dataset comprises a series of files relating to large-scale farms in the South East of England, which are defined by reference to their total area as either 182 hectares or more in 1941 and/or 300 hectares or more in 1978. One data file comprises a transcription of mainly quantitative elements of the National Farm Survey records of 1941-1943, and includes information relating to farm area, crop and livestock production, labour and machinery usage and an assessment of the physical and managerial condition of the farm. The data file for the 1978 and 1981 surveys cover a similar range of information relating to farm area, crop and livestock production, and labour and machinery usage, though the 1981 survey is more limited. The data file for the most recent survey, carried out between November 1998 and April 1999, also includes a similar range of agricultural variables together with information about farmer involvement with a range of non-agricultural activities and other contemporary issues affecting agriculture. These cover government conservation schemes, diversification, contracting, succession and use of information technology. The 1998-1999 survey includes both factual and attitudinal responses.
No sampling (total universe)
Simple random sample
Volunteer sample
The 1941 data file contains the whole universe of 'large-scale' farms in the study area. The 1978/1981 data file contains a simple random sample survey of 'large-scale' farms in 1978 matched with those responding to a follow-up postal questionnaire survey in 1981. The 1998/1999 data file contains the sample of farms matched by family and farm name between 1941 and/or 1978 to 1998 that volunteeredto take part in the 1998/1999 survey. All such farms were contacted for inclusion in the survey.
Face-to-face interview
Postal survey
Transcription of existing materials
the 1941 data file is a partial transcription of selected records from the National Farm Survey held at the Public Record Office. The file excludes any information that would enable the farms to be identified (e.g. grid reference, farmer and farm name). It also omits any annotations that had been added by those originally completing the National Farm Survey forms, other than where these provided the nuemerical value for a particular variable (e.g. where rent was expressed in pounds, shillings and pence per acre, this was converted to a total figure as the answer to the question). All historic, imperial units (e.g acres, horsepower, etc.) have been converted into hectares. The cartographic element of the National Farm Survey is not included.
