Abstract
Land bears an obvious significance to any study of agriculture and the rural economy. Its physical characteristics largely govern what farming activities can be carried on and, in turn, its appearance is affected by farming. The ownership of land is highly influential in determining who may use the land for farming and other purposes, which again has environmental and social consequences for the countryside. Land is an important asset in the business of farming and to the wealth position of farmers. Land ownership is associated with social and political power, even in an industrial society like the UK.
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Notes
EC (1981) Factors influencing ownership, tenancy, mobility and use of farmland in the United Kingdom Information on Agriculture No. 74 (Luxembourg).
Best, R. H.(1983) ‘Urban growth and agriculture’, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Annual Meeting.
Best, R. H. and Ward, J. T. The Garden Controversy, referred to in Best, R. H. (1981) Land Use and Living Space (London: Methuen).
There were earlier Acts, but the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act is usually regarded as marking the start of effective control: see Blunden, J. and Curry, N. (eds) (1985) The Countryside Handbook (London: Croom Helm/Open University).
Raup, P. M. (1982) ‘An agricultural critique of the National Agricultural Lands Study’, Land Economics 58:2, 260–74.
Shoard, M. (1980) The Theft of the Countryside (London: Temple Smith).
Newby, H. (1985) Green and Pleasant Land? (Aldershot: Gower).
The Land Registry in England and Wales is incapable of supplying useful information because of its incompleteness and the nature of the information collected; a broadly similar situation exists in Scotland. The Northfield Committee recommended that a more suitable and effective land registry be established. Northfield (1979), Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Aquisition and Occupancy of Agricultural Land Cmnd. 7599 (London: HMSO).
Bateman, J. (1883) The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th edn) (London: Harrison) reprinted 1971 (Leicester, Leicester University Press).
Northfield (1979) op. cit., and
Jones Lang Wootton (1983) The Agricultural Land Market in Britain (London: Jones Lang Wootton).
In 1979. Northfield (1979) put the share of land let commercially at 35–40 per cent when the ‘official’ figure was 43 per cent.
Massey, P. and Catalano, A. (1978) Capital and Land: Landownership by Capital in Great Britain (London: Arnold).
Hill, Berkeley (1985) ‘Farm Tenancy in the United Kingdom’, Agricultural Administration19:4, 189–207.
Britton D. K. and Hill, Berkeley (1978) Farm Tenure, Size and Efficiency (Ashford: Wye College).
Gasson, R. and Hill, Berkeley (1984) Farm Tenure and Performance (Ashford: Wye College).
Harrison, A. (1975) Farmers and farm businesses in England Miscellaneous Studies No. 62 (University of Reading: Department of Agricultural Economics and Management).
National parks occupy some 9 per cent of the total area of England and Wales, AONB 10 per cent: the SSSI form 5.3 per cent of GB, but these sites are in part located in NPs and AONB. Taking into account other areas where restrictions apply (e.g. MOD land) it has been estimated that effective control applies to 17 per cent of GB (Green, B. H. (1986) ‘Controlling ecosystems for amenity’ in Bradshaw, A. D. Goode, D. A. and Thorpe, E. (eds) Ecology and Design in Landscape (Oxford: Blackwell).
Thomas, Edgar (1949) An Introduction to Agricultural Economics (London: Thomas Nelson).
Newby, H., Bell, C., Rose, D. and Saunders, P. (1978) Property, Paternalism and Power: Class and Control in Rural England (London: Hutchinson).
Burrell. A., Hill, Berkeley and Medland, J. (1984) Statistical Handbook of UK Agriculture (London: Macmillan).
Based on Higgins, J. (1979) Irish Journal of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology7:2, 127–148.
Trail, B. (1982) ‘The effect of price support policies on agricultural investment, employment, farm incomes and land values in the UK’, J. Ag. Econ. 33: 3, 369–85.
Centre for Agricultural Strategy (1978) Capital for Agriculture, CAS Report No.3 (University of Reading).
This formula can also be used to calculate the maximum price an investor could afford to pay for a piece of land, given the amount of rent it earns and the rate of return he requires on his investment. Part of the rent would be absorbed by the costs of estate administration (maintenance of buildings, insurance, management and statutory charges). These costs are thought typically to consume between 30 and 50 per cent of the gross rent ADAS (1976) Expenses of agricultural land ownership in England and Wales, Technical Report 20/9 (Pinner: MAFF).
Hill, B. (1985) op. cit.
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© 1987 Berkeley Hill and Derek Ray
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Hill, B., Ray, D. (1987). Resources in Agriculture: Land. In: Economics for Agriculture. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18782-9_6
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