United Kingdom

D

2

Crop Farming

Most crop farming in Britain takes place in eastern and south central England and in eastern Scotland. The leading crops in the early 2000s were wheat, sugar beets, potatoes, barley, and rapeseed. As concern has grown about the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and biologically engineered seeds and their effect on the environment, some farmers have turned to organic farming, with support from the government.

D

3

Agricultural Policy

The British government began subsidizing the prices paid for agricultural products after World War II as a way to make farming profitable. In 1973 Britain joined the European Economic Community (EEC, now the European Union), and since then agricultural policy has been determined primarily by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This policy seeks to keep the agricultural market stable, ensure that farmers earn a fair living, and provide consumers with affordable food supplies. As a result of EU policies, products coming into Britain from non-EU countries are taxed, surplus products are bought and stored for later sale, and the cost of exports is subsidized if prices are low.

The British have criticized CAP, primarily because the British farming sector is smaller than the farming sectors of most EU nations. British farmers receive less monetary support from the EU than British taxpayers and consumers pay into CAP, and some British taxpayers and consumers feel they are supporting inefficient European farmers.

Criticism has increased as greater agricultural yields around the world have led to more CAP subsidies for European agriculture. CAP implemented various reforms in 1992 to reduce costs, subsidies, and stockpiles of foodstuffs, such as the surpluses of butter and wine in the 1970s and 1980s. Farmers have been encouraged to take land out of production, to adopt environmentally sound farming methods even though this may decrease production, and to place production quotas on certain products in an effort to reduce the amount of subsidy money they receive. Even so, CAP policies designed to protect small farms, particularly in France and Germany, continue to anger British taxpayers.

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E

Forestry

Britain was once covered with thick forests, but over the centuries the expanding human population steadily deforested nearly the entire country, felling trees for fuel and building materials. Despite the fact that trees grow quickly in the cool, moist climate of the United Kingdom, only remnants of the great oak forests remained at the end of the 20th century.

In 1919 only 5 percent of the United Kingdom was forested; as of 2005 this had increased to 11.7 percent. Most of the forested area consists of commercially planted, fast-growing coniferous trees in Wales and northeastern Scotland. Britain has made efforts to increase the managed forest areas. Imports of wood and wood products are substantial because Britain produces only a small proportion of the wood it needs.

F

Fishing

At one time the fishing industry not only provided a cheap source of protein for Britons, but it was also the training ground for the Royal Navy. Today fishing is a far less vital economic activity. Fish and fish products are both imported into and exported from Britain.

In recent decades overfishing and conservation restrictions imposed by the European Union have caused a decline in the deep-sea industry. As with agriculture, fisheries policy in Britain is largely determined by the EU through the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). It aims to protect the remaining fish stocks in European waters so that they can recover from severe overfishing. There are strict quotas on the kinds and amounts of fish that may be caught, and regulations detail the appropriate equipment to use. The CFP has caused some hardship to the British fishing fleet, especially through restrictions on the number of days that ships are permitted to fish.

G

Mining

Mining has been enormously important in British economic history. Salt mining dates from prehistoric times, and in ancient times traders from the Mediterranean shipped tin from the mines of Cornwall. These tin mines are exhausted today, and the last tin mine in Britain closed in 1998. Britain’s abundant coal resources were critical during the Industrial Revolution, especially because the coal was sometimes conveniently located near iron and could be used in iron and steel manufacture. These mined resources were so important to the Industrial Revolution that entire populations moved to work at coal and iron sites in the north and Midlands of England. Today the iron is exhausted, and the high-quality coal is depleted.

Raw materials for construction form the bulk of mineral production, including limestone, dolomite, sand, gravel, sandstone, common clay, and shale. Some coal is still mined, but petroleum and natural gas are far more important. Mining and quarrying, including oil and gas extraction, accounted for 2.6 percent of the GDP in the early 2000s and employed less than 1 percent of the labor force.