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Drought has wide ranging impacts on all sectors. Despite much effort to identify the best drought indicator to represents the occurrence of drought impacts in a particular sector, there is still no consensus among the scientific community on this. Using a more detailed and extensive impact dataset than in previous studies, this paper assesses the regional relationship between drought impacts occurrence in British agriculture and two of the most commonly used drought indices (SPI and SPEI). The largest qualitative dataset on reported drought impacts on British agriculture for the period 1975–2012 spanning all major recent droughts was collated. Logistic regression using generalised additive models was applied to investigate the association between drought indices and reported impacts at the regional level. Results show that SPEI calculated for the preceding six months is the best indicator to predict the probability of drought impacts on agriculture in the UK, although the variation in the response to SPEI 6 differed between regions. However, this variation appears to result both from the method by which SPEI is derived, which means that similar values of the index equate to different soil moisture conditions in wet and dry regions, and from the variation in agriculture between regions. The study shows that SPEI alone has limited value as an indicator of agricultural droughts in heterogeneous areas and that such results cannot be usefully extrapolated between regions. However, given the drought sensitivity of agriculture, the integration of regional predictions within drought monitoring and forecasting would help to reduce the large on-farm economic damage of drought and increase the sector's resilience to future drought. • Compares indices and periods to predict agricultural drought impacts in the UK • Best is Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) for six months. • Regional differences are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Livestock systems in the United Kingdom will be affected by climate change. • A range of on-farm adaptation options are available at low-cost. • Adapting to observed and short-term impacts may overcome barriers. • Long-term changes should be planned for. Agriculture is a vital economic sector, providing food, fibre, and energy to a growing human population. Livestock are an important part of this sector, however the evidence and understanding of how a changing climate may affect livestock production systems, or how they may adapt to the changes, is a neglected area compared to the research into crop production. In this paper, we focus on livestock in the United Kingdom (UK), as an example of a temperate region likely to experience at least moderate changes in climate that will require changes to the way agricultural systems operate. We summarise the projected climate changes in this region, identify the main impacts likely to affect livestock agriculture, and discuss potential adaptation options at the farm level. We also categorise the adaptation options by the types of costs they incur, emphasising that many of these options involve management changes rather than investment and therefore no financial cost. Finally, we discuss the need for longer term planning to prepare for changes that have not yet been observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the environmental impact of the 1992 reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union within British arable agriculture. It demonstrates how policies that were expected by some to have positive environmental outcomes did not do so. One reason for this failure is to do with the design of the policy instruments and the fact that environmental objectives were not explicit.It is suggested that the environmental arguments remain peripheral to policy making within the European Commission. It is also the case that there were important unexpected impacts of other non-policy factors, especially trends in world market prices for arable products in the period following 1992. A weak policy thesis in which the CAP sits alongside market forces, other policies and the socio-economics of agriculture provides a powerful explanation of land management in agriculture. However, it is also the case that the policy remains strong if measured by its core principles. The paper suggests in conclusion that future policy reforms should recognize the complex and inter-related factors influencing farmer behaviour. This is likely to mean a combination of measures designed to capture the potential for increasing biodiversity in a range of contrasting farm systems and individual farm circumstances. Policy goals should be explicit and the policy mechanisms designed to achieve those goals tightly focused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies a reading of the wider theoretical understanding of rural restructuring to the reform of agricultural holdings legislation over the last century. In charting the shifting legal basis of agricultural tenancies in England and Wales, from 'black letter' positivism to a more cultural form and system of regulation, the paper theorises that the underlying political imperative has been allied to the changing significance of property ownership and use. Rather than reflecting a long-term desire to maintain the let sector in British agriculture, however, the paper argues that this process has had other aims. In particular, it has been about an annexation of law to legitimise the retention of landowner power while presenting a 'democratisation' of farming, away from its plutocratic associations and towards anew narrative of 'depersonalised' business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which recent observations about the declining power of landowners signals the arrival of a post-feudal structure in world agriculture. Using the findings of a desk study oflease arrangements across four continents, the paper shows that, although there are substantial cultural and customary differences in theways in which agricultural leases have developed, three broad systems can be delineated. These are characterised as: the `feudal' system,in which landowners remain dominant; a neo-feudal system which, while underwriting private landowning, attempts to combine commercial agriculture with the maintenance of an open and vibrant lease sector; and a post-feudal system, based on improving the financial and technical efficiency of the farming industry. Using this classification, the paper explores the key determinants of the types of lease system which have emerged. It suggests that the suitability of any given system is a function of the overall policy objectives established for the sector. On this basis the paper rejects western constructs of a linear progression from feudalism to post-feudalism. Rather, it suggests that, as both extreme systems are open to exploitation, long-term stability and flexibility is most likely to occur under a neo-feudal regimein which government assumes a pivotal role in supporting both landowners and tenants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers are continually adjusting their business enterprises in response to the shifting economic, political and social pressures which affect each aspect of their production. These adjustments may include structural changes, agronomic (production) changes or moves into 'diversification' enterprises, and are manifest at different scales, fromthe farm unit to changes in a country's or region's agricultural structure. One factor influencing future changes in agriculture is likely to be climate change ('global warming') which will after the physical environmental conditions of production. The consequences of this might include a change in the crop species cultivated in different areas. This paper examines the responses of farmers in part of southern Britain to the possibility of growing navy beans, a crop used for baked bean manufacture and obtained almost wholly from North America, asa response to a warmer climate. The paper seeks to explore the network of relations at the farm, national and international scales which will determine the likelihood of commercial adoption of the crop occurring in the U.K. Through discussion of the results of interviews with farmers, food processing companies and associated agencies it is concluded that there are significant structural barriers to the adoption of navy beans as a diversification option on U.K. farms as a resultof international trade restraints and a measure of inertia and risk aversion within the processing companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into the adoption of Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) has typically sought to identify the defining characteristics of participants and the 'barriers to entry' that dissuade others fromjoining. More recently, attention has focused on the motivation of participants and non-participants in helping to understand patterns ofparticipation. This paper compares the pattern of participation in two distinct schemes operating in South East England. Indirect evidence suggests that scheme design and implementation is influencing the type of farmer joining and their motivation for doing so. Results froma survey of farmers also support the idea that the schemes are recruiting from different sections of the farming community. ESA farmers are largely motivated by financial gain, whereas those enrolling land in the Countryside Stewardship Scheme have more clearly defined conservation motives. Although there is also a 'core' of resistant non-participants, further changes to the design and delivery of policy couldencourage a large number of 'potential enrolers' to join. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers alternative means for assessing the success of 'agri-environmental' policy (AEP), which has become an increasingly-important aspect of agricultural and environmental policy throughout Europe, and which has probably developed more extensively in the UK than elsewhere. After a brief description of the main elements of AEP in the UK, we consider two broad classes of assessment method, those based on efficiency and those based on effectiveness. The latter classof methods has dominated appraisal so far in the UK, primarily through participation measures. We outline the limitations of these, and then consider evidence of policy efficiency gained through cost-benefit analysis techniques. Finally, we suggest how a combined approach could be used to appraise three possible changes to UK agri-environmental policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The report of the Scott Committee on Land Utilisation in Rural Areas, in August 1942, constituted the first comprehensive review of ruralissues in England and Wales. Never before had agriculture and land-use planning been considered in such an integrated, yet detailed, manner. Through contemporary archival evidence, the paper appraises the circumstances in which the Committee was convened, the preoccupations brought to its deliberations by the Chairman, Stamp and Dennison, andthe manner in which Government departments, and most obviously the Ministry of Agriculture, sought to manipulate both the Committee's appointment and findings to their own advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]