The food chain - the production and delivery of our food from farm to fork - is big business. It employs 12.5% of our workers and accounts for 8% of our economy. Farmers manage 70% of the land in England. It is a complex sector, with some world-class organisations set alongside many individual farmers and growers struggling with incomes at their lowest since the 1930s. Most farms are small individual businesses.

In looking at the very serious long-term problems faced by the sector, the commission set out the food chain's under-performance across all three elements of sustainability.
Economically, profitability is low
Environmentally, while agriculture generates significant environmental benefits it also has negative impacts
Socially, agriculture's importance to the UK economy is greater once further linkages are taken into account, including the half million UK jobs in food and drink manufacturing.

To the student
This unit of work investigates how different farmers have faced the challenge of these changes and the solutions they have devised to remain in the farming business. You should study the farm profiles before attempting the activities that will help you evaluate how farmers have used their land in different ways in order to adapt to change. Some farmers have been more successful than others and many of the activities will ask you to consider what you would do in similar circumstances. Throughout the work you will be introduced to some techniques which will help you to analyse the information more efficiently. You may need to check the meanings of some of the terms used and some technical terms have been highlighted in bold print for you.

Student Activity

The Prime Minister states at the beginning of the Curry Report that ‘We all want industries our children will want to work in, producing food which they will want to buy. We all want a countryside which they will cherish. We all need to work together to secure it'

1. In pairs discuss what you think the Prime Minister means and decide whether you entirely agree with him