Farming Video Clips

All clips are taken from the BBC Learning Zone website

One hectare- 10 000 m2 ( roughly the size of a full international rugby pitch)
Agribusiness- very large farms with lots of machines, often made by joining several small farms together
Arable-farming of cereal crops (from Latin, "to plough")
diversify/diversification- to go into other activities to make additional money, eg B&B, farm shop, ice cream, quad biking.
subsidy- money given by national or EU government to an industry or business, to help it develop or overcome difficult economic situations

Clip 1: Click here 

Dairy v Sheep and Arable

"Dumfries and Galloway in the west of Scotland receives much more rainfall than the Scottish Borders in the east. Weather conditions in Scotland are mostly brought by winds blowing in from the Atlantic to the west. These winds carry water vapour. When the winds blow over mountains, the vapour turns to rain. As the air moves east, there is less vapour and hence less rainfall. The Scottish Borders is mostly gentle rolling farmland, home to sheep and arable farming. Crops are grown for sale and for feeding animals. In Dumfries and Galloway, fields are more uniformly used to grow grass on which dairy cows graze." (BBC Learning Zone")

Clip 2 Click here

Need for farmers to find other ways of making money-diversification

With dwindling incomes from hill farming, farmers in the Yorkshire Dales have had to diversify into providing accommodation and other businesses. The main activity in the Yorkshire Dales is agriculture. The landscape and climate mean crops cannot be farmed economically. Sheep, beef and dairy farming are the main sources of income but returns from dairy farming are dwindling. Many farmers have had to diversify into other sources of income, including providing accommodation and, in a case study shown, a mail order plant business.

Q-Why is livestock more important than cereal crops here?
Q-How does tourism help farmers?

Clip 3 Click here

Farms as "big business"

Farming in the UK has changed beyond recognition over farmer John Latham’s lifetime. In the 1930s ( when his great grandfather farmed 25 Ha of land) farm production was much lower than it is today and profits were more difficult to achieve. During the Second World War combine harvesters were introduced to increase productivity and reduce the need for imports. Subsidies (extra money)  meant that farming changed through the use of chemicals and machinery; this was the birth of agribusiness. In recent years John has increased profits on his farm by joining forces with other farms in the area to cut costs.