Volume 12: Livestock Farming
2.
Key features of UK agriculture
Contribution of beef and dairy production to UK agriculture
2.8 Beef and dairy farming have long been closely integrated, with surplus calves and aged or unproductive cows from dairy herds providing nearly two-thirds of UK beef production in the mid-1980s (see Figures 4.1 and 4.2). Dairy cows are often crossed with beef bulls to produce crossbred cows for the beef suckler herd (further details about breeding practices are given in Chapter 5).
2.9 In 1986 the UK cattle population was 12.5 million spread across 122,900, orjust under half, of farm holdings. 1
2.10 In the same year the output of milk, fattened cattle and calves (at 1990 prices) was worth £5,134 million, contributing 60 per cent of the total value of livestock products in the UK and 37.5 per cent of the UK's total agricultural output. 2 In 1995 output of these products had declined to £4,681 million (at 1990 prices), contributing 53 per cent of the total value of livestock products and 33 per centof the value of total agricultural output. 3
2.11 In 1986, the UK produced 94 per cent of the total beef and veal supplied to the domestic market. By 1995, domestic production of beef and veal had dropped (from 1,046 to 996 thousand tonnes), yet domestic production met 113 per cent of the supply to the domestic market. 4 This indicates a drop in domestic consumption leading to a surplus to be exported (see paragraph 2.13 below on exports of beefto the EU).
2.12 Between 1986 and 1995 the UK produced sufficient liquid milk to supply the needs of the domestic market and over two-thirds of the domestic market's demand for butter and cheese. 5
1 MAFF, Annual Review of Agriculture 1988, London, The Stationery Office, 1989
2 For the purposes of comparing how the output of the various agricultural products changed between 1986 and 1995, we have used data from MAFF's Annual Review of Agriculture 1996, London, The Stationery Office, 1997, which uses 1990 prices as the baseline for the comparison between years
3 Note that these figures represent estimates of the value of outputs (ie, value of sales of final product), and do not include costs of inputs
4 MAFF, Annual Review of Agriculture 1988; MAFF, Agriculture in the UK 1996
5 MAFF, Agriculture in the UK 1996
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