English Farm Research Articles

Nitrogen balance is a predictor of farm business performance in the English Farm Business Survey

Global environmental sustainability and food security are fundamental societal issues, and most crop production relies upon inputs from organic or inorganic nitrogen sources. Previous research in the Global North has demonstrated a typical over application of nitrogen across global agriculture with substantial negative impacts on the environment. The objective of this work was to draw on English Farm Business Survey (FBS) data of non-organic General Cropping and Cereal farms to explore the relationship between farm gate nitrogen balance, fertilizer application advice and farm business performance. A mixed effects generalized modeling approach was used to partition the variance into random (such as year, or farm ID) and fixed effects (those of interest). Whilst the financial performance of farm businesses is subject to high variance and multiple drivers, a negative relationship was detected between business performance and farm gate nitrogen balance, we demonstrate that nitrogen lost to the environment of >60 kg per hectare is associated with a significant negative impact on farm performance. Supplier-provided fertilizer advice was also associated with reduced farm performance. These results imply a positive effect on farm performance of enhancing on-farm understanding of crop nutrient requirements through the provision of accredited fertilizer advice. Within the stated bounds our model demonstrates good predictivity on randomly subsetted data, and is presented as a tool for use in scenario modeling of interventions such as agri-environment schemes, Natural Capital and Ecosystems Assessment, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Subjectivity in the Lancaster Amish Community Study of 1940-42: 'Economic Conquest' in Loomis’s Diary and Rosinow’s Photographs

The American Farm Community Study (1940), funded by the USDA’s Bureau of Agricultural Economics, was a social investigation that sought to determine why some rural communities thrive while others fail. To conduct the Study, the Bureau sent social scientists to six rural communities across the country to investigate and document the most and least “stable” American communities. Geographer Walter Kollmorgen, sociologist Charles Loomis, and photographer Irving Rusinow documented the Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, PA, as the “most stable” community in the Study. In Lancaster, the men found a people thriving in the midst of english neighbors still economically reeling from depression and war. In existing research, Kollmorgen’s neutral/distant data collection effort receives the most attention. This study focuses on the subjectivity of Charles Loomis’ and Irving Rustow’s data collection. Loomis collected data in a personal-style diary while working as a farmhand on a former english farm taken over by an Amishman. Rusinow photographed landscapes that visually portrayed how Amish took over dilapidated english farmsteads, suggesting Amish community stability went hand-in-hand with economic conquest. Together, in word and image, Loomis and Rusinow described the Amish via narratives of conquest, empire, nascent Nationalism, and (re)valuations of the (Anglo) American dream. [Abstract by author.]

Ancestral Caddo Ceramic Vessels from Sites in Nacogdoches and Panola Counties in East Texas

The ancestral Caddo ceramic vessels discussed in this article are from four different sites in Nacogdoches and Panola counties, in East Texas. The one site in Nacogdoches County, namely the Gatewood site (41NA3) is located in the Angelina River basin, while the three Panola County sites (41PN5, 41PN15, and H. L. English Farm) are on tributaries that flow into the Sabine River. The Gatewood site is on the west bank of Attoyac Bayou, a major tributary of the Angelina River basin, in the easternmost part of Nacogdoches County. In 1939, a road grader working along a county road had exposed an ancestral Caddo burial feature with skeletal remains and three ceramic vessels. Gus Arnold, working on the University of Texas Archeological survey of East Texas, recorded the site and collected one of the ceramic vessels; no details were obtained on the other two vessels in the feature.

Making explicit agricultural ecosystem service trade-offs: a case study of an English lowland arable farm

European farmland hosts a species assemblage of animals and plants which have undergone declines through the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, at least partly as a result of increased productivity. Further increases in human populations, changes in availability and cost of raw materials, policy constraints, price volatility and climatic changes will further drive greater efficiency and high yields in agriculture, with the risk of further adverse environmental impacts. We assess the effects of different management priorities (production-driven cropping vs. wildlife-friendly farming) at an arable farm in eastern England on food production, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and biodiversity. We modelled one actual and three alternative cropping scenarios using actual yields from the farm over 13 years, to calculate total yields and those foregone for agri-environmental measures. We measured crop yields, relative abundance of 19 farmland bird species, and CO2 and N2O emissions related to crop production. Removing up to 10.5% of land from production coupled with a more diverse rotation (including legumes) resulted in a large increase in breeding birds (177%) and reduction of 9.4% in GHG emissions at the cost of 9.6% of food energy. Food protein lost was only 2.9%. A smaller increase in bird numbers of 50% could be achieved at a much smaller cost to yield (∼1.7% energy or protein) but with correspondingly smaller emissions reductions (1.2%). Results are discussed within the context of continued biodiversity loss to agriculture, increasing food demand and changing diets.

Farm Mapping to Assist, Protect, and Prepare Emergency Responders: Farm MAPPER

ABSTRACTResponders such as firefighters and emergency medical technicians who respond to farm emergencies often face complex and unknown environments. They may encounter hazards such as fuels, solvents, pesticides, caustics, and exploding gas storage cylinders. Responders may be unaware of dirt roads within the farm that can expedite their arrival at critical sites or snow-covered manure pits that act as hidden hazards. A response to a farm, unless guided by someone familiar with the operation, may present a risk to responders and post a challenge in locating the victim. This project explored the use of a Web-based farm-mapping application optimized for tablets and accessible via easily accessible on-site matrix barcodes, or quick response codes (QR codes), to provide emergency responders with hazard and resource information to agricultural operations. Secured portals were developed for both farmers and responders, allowing both parties to populate and customize farm maps with icons. Data were stored online and linked to QR codes attached to mailbox posts where emergency responders may read them with a mobile device. Mock responses were conducted on dairy farms to test QR code linking efficacy, Web site security, and field usability. Findings from farmer usability tests showed willingness to enter data as well as ease of Web site navigation and data entry even with farmers who had limited computer knowledge. Usability tests with emergency responders showed ease of QR code connectivity to the farm maps and ease of Web site navigation. Further research is needed to improve data security as well as assess the program’s applicability to nonfarm environments and integration with existing emergency response systems. The next phases of this project will expand the program for regional and national use, develop QR code–linked, Web-based extrication guidance for farm machinery for victim entrapment rescue, and create QR code–linked online training videos and materials for limited English proficient immigrant farm workers.

Farm‐level actions towards water pollution control: the role of nutrient guidance systems

AbstractEnhanced agricultural pollution control will be required to ensure compliance with the 2015 European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive. Drawing upon data from an on‐farm survey with 1370 farmers and growers across England, combined with production, financial, farm and farmer characteristic data from the English Farm Business Survey, this paper investigates farmer attitudes and actions towards water pollution control. Significant differences in practices taken to reduce or prevent pollution were observed by farm type, EU region, farmer education level and use or absence of a nutrient guidance system. However, no significant differences were observed in financial output–input performance of arable farmers by use and non‐use of a nutrient guidance system. Nutrient guidance systems were, however, associated with a greater uptake of practices to reduce or prevent water pollution. Water companies could build upon upstream land management approaches to provide targeted investment in extension services to incentivise on‐farm use of these guidance systems.

FORUM: Landscape‐scale conservation: collaborative agri‐environment schemes could benefit both biodiversity and ecosystem services, but will farmers be willing to participate?

Summary The primary aim of many agri‐environment schemes (AES) is to enhance biodiversity; however, the results of AES designed for this purpose have, to date, been largely underwhelming. One reason for this may be because AES tend to be administered at the farm scale. We argue that collaborative AES (cAES) – single environmental management agreements for multiple farm units – can benefit biodiversity. We then discuss how a shift to this type of scheme may impact upon ecosystem services (ES). Evidence gathered from studies carried out across European farmland demonstrated that more than a third (18 of 52; 35%) of the bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian and bumblebee species important in English farmland operate at scales larger than the typical English farm (146 ha) in the breeding season. While this study relates ranging behaviour specifically to England and the English AES system, the estimates of ranging behaviour presented in this study could also be used (with caution) to compare with farm sizes elsewhere in Europe, making the results of wider geographical relevance. Data were obtained from face‐to‐face interviews with 32 farmers with differing AES backgrounds [current participants at either low or high level (entry‐level Stewardship or higher‐level Stewardship/countryside Stewardship scheme), or current non‐participants]. Eighty‐one per cent of interviewees were found to be willing, in principle, to participate in a collaborative AES (cAES) programme. However, they viewed less extensive options (e.g. management of existing hedgerows) more favourably than extensive or cooperatively demanding land management options (e.g. large‐scale habitat creation). Data from an online consultation of a further 122 farmers supported the principal finding, with 75% of respondents willing, in theory, to participate in collaborative schemes. Synthesis and applications. Well‐designed landscape‐scale schemes are likely to be more beneficial than farm‐scale schemes for a small but significant number of key farmland species and ES, such as bats, mammals and some important pollinators, while unlikely to harm species operating at smaller scales. These schemes can be expected to attract widespread participation from landowners. Thus, policymakers may be heartened that collaborative AES are a potential multifaceted solution to environmental management on farmland.

The Secret of Shangri-La: Agricultural Travels and the Rise of Organic Farming Discourse

The Secret of Shangri-La: Agricultural Travels and the Rise of Organic Farming Discourse

Explaining variation in farm and farm business performance in respect to farmer behavioural segmentation analysis: Implications for land use policies

Economic-orientated land use policies designed within a productivist framework have been argued to be inappropriate to achieve post-productivist multifunctional goals. Additionally, policies which fail to account for attitude–behaviour differences amongst land managers may be equally lacking. Using Defra's behavioural segmentation approach applied to 750 English Farm Business Survey (FBS) co-operators, this paper presents an analysis of the relationship between segmentation groups and their associated physical, financial and managerial attributes to test the segmentation concept. An analysis of the segmentation process is provided, examining the effectiveness of such an approach towards enhancing land use policies. Results classified FBS co-operators as: Custodians (14.0%); Lifestyle Choice (7.2%); Pragmatists (53.3%); Modern Family Business (21.1%); Challenged Enterprises (4.4%). Analysis of the physical, financial and managerial attributes associated with each segmentation group concurs with a priori expectations, offering potential advantages to policy makers in targeting policy design and delivery messages to accord with the objectives of particular segments. However, whilst a proportion of co-operators clearly identified with a particular segmentation group, other co-operators found the process of self-identity segmentation to be both challenging and lacking perceived practical relevance. Given the challenges encountered, policy makers seeking to use the segmentation approach to enhance the design and implementation of post-productivist policies must therefore be aware of the need for caution when attempting to “segment” the farming and horticultural population.

An Assessment of the English Farm Woodland Premium Scheme and its Ability to Promote and Sustain Environmental Improvements in Agricultural Landscapes

Governmental programs have been widely used in the United States and elsewhere to address agricultural problems. In England, the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme (FWPS) was established in 1992 to compensate farmers for converting farmlands into woodlands. This study found that the program was successful, but could be improved with a few modifications. For example, the high level of farmer satisfaction indicates that the scheme's enrollment levels are sustainable. However, implementing incentives for tenant participation and providing forest management training programs might achieve increased enrollment levels. Furthermore, FWPS administrators reported a tension-free relationship with farmers, steady funding levels, and new program efficiencies. The scheme may be even more effective, however, if it had more funding, better coordination between agencies, and slightly modified compliance policies. The FWPS also has promoted significant environmental improvements to the countryside by expanding woodland cover and edge, increasing wildlife biodiversity, and diminishing pollution levels. However, encouraging plantings that supplement or connect existing woodland patches would likely enhance such environmental benefits. The scheme should also provide effective flood and erosion control over time, as the new plantings develop into mature forests. Insights into the FWPS and its environmental benefits are discussed with respect to their possible relevance elsewhere.

New Zealand as an English Farm for the Chinese?

New Zealand as an English Farm for the Chinese?

Effects of agri-environment schemes in a long-term ecological time series

We investigated the impact of agri-environment schemes, including organic farming, on contrasting taxa, when the management of a Southern English farm was changed in the middle of a 12-year time series for an ecosystem-monitoring programme. Plant species richness, including butterfly larval food plants, increased, whilst grassland productivity decreased. There was no overall difference in butterfly or carabid beetle abundance or species richness after the management changes, but some individual species increased significantly. Moth abundance and species richness significantly increased following changes in management. There were significant longer term increases in butterfly and carabid populations from when monitoring started in 1994, which continued through the change in management. This contrasted with national trends over the same period. Warmer summers generally increased invertebrate abundance, but there was no significant trend in weather variables for the years following the change in management. This study corroborates results from short-term comparison of contrasting farms and demonstrates measurable benefits to biodiversity from the implementation of agri-environment schemes, which continue to increase over at least 5 years.

The long march of history: Farm wages, population, and economic growth, England 1209–18691

SUMMARYThe article forms three series for English farm workers from 1209–1869: nominal day wages, the implied marginal product of a day of farm labour, and the purchasing power of a day’s wage in terms of farm workers’ consumption. These series suggest that labour productivity in English agriculture was already high in the middle ages. Furthermore, they fit well with one method of estimating medieval population that suggests a peak English population c.1300 of nearly 6 million. Lastly, they imply that both agricultural technology and the general efficiency of the economy were static from 1250 till 1600. Economic changes were in these years entirely a product of demographic shifts. From 1600 to 1800, technological advance in agriculture provided an alternative source of dynamism in the English economy.

Detection of seroconversion to West Nile virus, Usutu virus and Sindbis virus in UK sentinel chickens

We previously reported evidence of West Nile virus (WNV) circulation in UK birds, probably introduced by migratory birds from overseas. We now demonstrate WNV-specific seroconversion in sentinel chickens raised on an English farm. Maternal neutralizing antibodies to WNV in hatchlings declined within three weeks. During the following months, healthy chickens developed WNV neutralizing antibodies that were confirmed by immunoblotting and indirect immunofluorescence tests using WNV antigens. The proportion of seropositive chickens was higher for WNV than for Usutu virus or Sindbis virus. Attempts to isolate infectious virus or to detect viral RNA in the sera, failed.

Farm Production in England 1700–1914. By Michael E. Turner, John V. Beckett, and Bethanie Afton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xii, 295. £45.00.

Michael Turner, John Beckett, and Bethanie Afton have assembled a data set based on a large number of English farm records (in the form of account books, wage/labor books, and memoranda books). Some of the fruits of this effort appeared previously in Turner, Beckett, and Afton's Agricultural Rent in England, 1690–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). This new book employs a subset of 979 of these farm records to cast new light on some important aspects of English farm production in the period 1700 to 1914. In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the book comprises five substantive chapters. Chapter 2 discusses the records as a source; chapter 3 considers some aspects of farming practice (notably cropping patterns and fertilizer use); chapter 4 presents new estimates of wheat yields; chapter 5 presents new estimates of barley and oat yields; and chapter 6 presents new evidence on livestock weights. The most important findings of the book are that the overall growth in wheat, barley, and oat yields was much lower than is commonly thought, and that the main period of yield growth occurred between the 1820s and 1850s. The authors argue on this basis that the Agricultural Revolution can be fixed firmly in the period 1800 to 1850. The great strength of the book is that the data on which it is based are almost entirely new. For that reason, it is a very welcome contribution to our stock of knowledge, and both the authors and their funding body (the Leverhulme Foundation) are to be congratulated.

Investigating Agricultural Production and Land Productivity [Methodology and Opportunities using English Farm Records

Résumé. Pour une enquête sur la production agricole et la productivité du sol. Méthodologie et perspectives offertes par l'utilisation des archives d'exploitations en Angleterre. Les recherches relatives à la production agricole et à la productivité du sol en Angleterre ont été handicapées par le manque de données à partir du début du xvnie siècle en raison de la raréfaction des inventaires après décès et cela jusqu'à la constitution par le gouvernement en 1866 de statistiques agricoles annuelles. Or, pour trouver les données manquantes il est possible de recourir aux archives laissées par les exploitants eux-mêmes. Plusieurs centaines de comptabilités d'exploitations, de carnets, de journaux personnels ont été conservées en différents lieux, dans toute l'Angleterre. Par leur nature même, ces archives sont idiosyncratiques et difficiles à mettre en œuvre. Pour cette raison, elles ont été largement ignorées par les historiens. Cependant, des sources aussi nombreuses et aussi variées présentent le plus grand intérêt et ne sauraient être négligées. Cet article examine les caractéristiques de ces documents et quelques-unes des voies qui permettraient de créer des bases de données et de prendre en compte les différents systèmes de cultures.

Phosphorus Balance of Contrasting Farming Systems, Past and Present. Can Food Production be Sustainable?

Phosphorus inputs and losses are calculated for contrasting farming systems. In all of them cereals were a major product. In typical modern British wheat farming, P input in fertilizer and removal in crop harvested exceed all natural inputs and losses by more than an order of magnitude. Net natural inputs (i.e. inputs - losses) to farms not receiving inorganic fertilizer would be expected to support grain harvest of the order of 0.1 ton ha -1 year -1 . However, yields about an order of magnitude higher than this have been achieved in various farming systems in the past which did not use inorganic fertilizer. Phosphorus balances are calculated for four such farming systems. Of these, only fields along the Nile in ancient Egypt, which received flood water annually, were probably in long-term P balance. In the USA mid-west in the nineteenth century, decomposition of soil organic matter supplied P to crops, but at a declining rate. In a medieval English farm and in early twentieth century China, too, crop yield was probably dependent on soil P stores and so was not sustainable long-term. These case studies draw attention to the limits that phosphorus supply can place on sustainable crop yields because of slow rates of natural P input.

Testing for Occupational Crowding in Eighteenth-Century British Agriculture

In the unskilled labor market of Industrial Revolution Britain, there was a distinct division of labor between the sexes. This occupational sorting may have been caused by gender discrimination, but, because men and women had different comparative advantages, it could also have been produced by a competitive market. This paper attempts to determine whether the division of labor resulted from discrimination in the form of occupational crowding by testing whether men and women were substitutes. Data on the employment of English farm servants in 1770 indicate that employers were willing to substitute male and female workers, which implies that the division of labor between the sexes was influenced by economic motivations, and was not determined by gender ideology alone.

"Gentlemen Have Horrors Upon This Subject": West Indian Suitors in Maria Edgeworth's Belinda

"Gentlemen Have Horrors Upon This Subject": West Indian Suitors in Maria Edgeworth's Belinda Kathryn J. Kirkpatrick When Maria Edgeworth published her second novel, Belinda (1801), her heroine drew fire from critics. As writers at the Monthly Review observed, Belinda "has not called forth in us a great portion of interest on her behalf, nor entitled herself to our highest love and admiration, as a perfect model of the female character."1 What kept Belinda from love, admiration, and perfection was her "admission of a second attachment." Although her feelings for the English aristocrat, Clarence Hervey, are never spoken, and Hervey himself makes plans to marry someone else, Belinda's subsequent romantic attachment to the West Indian Mr Vincent did not meet with her critics' approbation. In response to her critics' demands and advice from her father, Edgeworth made extensive revisions to the early edition of Belinda, and when it reappeared in 1810 as part of Mrs Barbauld's British Novelists Series, the novel was significantly altered. Taken as a whole, these revisions reveal something more than the reformation of Belinda as "jilt." For in the process of cooling Belinda's second attachment, Edgeworth effectively rewrote her representations of romantic relationships between English women and West Indian men. In the 1801 edition Edgeworth had not only brought her heroine to the brink of marriage with the Creole 1 Monthly Review 37 (1801), 369. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 5, Number 4, July 1993 332 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION gentlemen Mr Vincent, she had also married that gentleman's black servant Juba to an English farm girl. The lengthy cuts and revisions which Edgeworth made in her 1810 edition censored both relationships. Edgeworth's early edition of Belinda attacks established notions of racial purity and patriarchal authority. Her own position as a colonial in Ireland allowed her to challenge the endogamy of English society by extending its parameters to other English colonies such as those in the West Indies. Just as the English had always viewed overly close contact with the Gaelic people as likely to produce degenerating and uncivilizing effects , so they objected to the interracial sexual mixing which Edgeworth portrayed in her novel. What was at work in this notion of "purity" was the perpetuation of primogeniture.2 Interracial marriages not only failed to produce white English heirs, they also, when the husband was "other," failed to consolidate colonial wealth in the hands of white English gentlemen . The early edition ofBelinda thus illustrated the subversive potential involved in an Englishwoman's choice of a West Indian husband. Although the English had been trying to conquer Ireland since the twelfth century, it was not until the late sixteenth century that English officials began to view Ireland as a colony whose English planters faced the same perils as settlers among the North American Indians. According to Nicholas Canny, the word "colony" in the sixteenth century was used interchangeably with "plantation" to mean "the introduction of nucleated settlements of Englishmen into an area that had not previously been subject to English government control."3 The English government's 2 I am indebted to Françoise Lionnet's Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989) for this theoretical formulation. I have also found Laura Donaldson's "The Miranda Complex: Colonialism and the Question of Feminist Reading," Diacritics 18 (1988), 65-77, extremely useful for assessing Edgeworth's attempts to "see" the indigenous other. My reading of Belinda is grounded on the assumption that Edgeworth's gender and colonial status cannot be separated. I differ from critics who evoke an exclusively English context and focus on gender. See Gary Kelly, "Amelia Opie, Lady Carolina Lamb, and Maria Edgeworth: Official and Unofficial Ideology," Ariel: A Review ofInternational English Literature 12 (1981), 3-24. While such an approach allows Edgeworth to be compared with other English women writers, it gives little attention to the particularity of her Anglo-Irish background . Another tendency in Edgeworth criticism encourages analysis of her work as precisely the product of a colonial background, the Big House landed gentry of the Protestant Ascendancy . For example, see P.F. Sheeran, "Colonists and Colonized: Some Aspects of Anglo-Irish Literature from Swift...

Energy audit of an English farm

The energy ratio for a food-producing process is defined as the energy outputted in the form of crops, animals and wastes to the quantity of commercially supplied energy invested. This ratio should well exceed unity because of the harnessing of insolation during the growth of plants. This approach has been applied to a single lowland mixed-farming business, for which the problems associated with the use of fossil fuels have been examined and energy-thrift opportunities identified. In addition, the environmental impacts of fuel use on the farm are discussed.