Organic farm incomes in England and Wales 2010/11 (OF 0373)

Summary

This report presents results of research on the financial performance of organic farms in the 2010/11 financial year (with 2009/10 data for reference. Carried out for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), this research continues project OF0373.
An analysis of the FBS/Defra Data Archive for 2010/11 found a total of 250 businesses with some organic land. To ensure the analysis undertakes a reasonable comparison of organic and conventional farms, the organic sample comprises holdings with at least 70% fully organic land (>=70% of UAA ha). Farms identified as “in-conversion” or those with less than 70% fully organic certified land were excluded from the analysis, providing a sample of 217 organic holdings.
In total, data from 212 organic farms were suitable for inclusion in the analysis, as it was not possible to identify comparable conventional businesses for four organic farms, and one organic specialist pig farm was also not utilised (due to minimum sample size restrictions).
The data was analysed as two samples; a full sample and an identical sample. The full sample analysis utilised data from all 212 organic farms and provides the best comparison of organic and comparable conventional farm income data in 2010/11, (2009/10 data is only provided for reference). The identical sample identifies year to year changes within systems, though the sample sizes are smaller as not all farms will be part of the FBS dataset for two years.