Universities and National Colleges

The degree and diploma courses offered universities and national Agricultural Colleges are largely theoretical in content. They most usually lead to posts of an advisory, research or managerial nature. Some of their publications may be useful to rural resettlers.

N.B. A useful booklet called 'Agricultural Education' can be obtained from the Department of Education and Science (published by HMSO). It lists all the Universities, Agricultural Colleges and-Colleges of Agriculture with their addresses.

SMALLHOLDINGS QUESTIONNAIRE - SOME RESULTS

In the Spring of 1978, the RRG distributed a questionnaire to smallholders, largely through the WWOOF* Newsletter. Our aim was to gather information to enable us to base our advice and campaign-ing upon more than general impressions from personal experience and contacts. Although we did not receive as many replies as we had hoped, we think that our results might still interest readers.

In all, 43 questionnaires were returned to us. They were remarkably diverse: holdings ranged from 1 to 141 acres, from the south-east of England to the west of Ireland, and from lone workers to large communities - too diverse for any precise statistical analysis; the range of ideas and aims would be done very little justice by quantification. So what follows is really a series of 'informed impressions' about the smallholders who answered our questionnaire.

A high proportion of the smallholders established themselves very recently. All but 5 set up in the 1970's, and nearly half during the last 3 years. This suggests a growing movement to the land, although it might also be because there has been a high failure rate amongst earlier smallholders, or that WWOOF caters for those who are just setting themselves up (and WWOOF is itself still rather young, after all). Unsurprisingly, in view of the enormous rise in land prices, holdings have become rather smaller; those set up in the earlier part of the 1970's and before were usually above 10 acres, but holdings set up more recently lie predominantly below this.

									Nearly half the holdings are run by people with previous experience or qualifications related to farming; and those without experience or qualifications usually took on smaller holdings. This belies the charge which is often made that those moving back to the land are largely a bunch of novices who will be unable to care responsibly for their land and livestock.

There's no doubt about it, small-holding is generally very hard work: Many of those who replied were at pains to stress the "sheer bloody hard work". Almost half of the holdings average total weekly hours in excess of 100, this figure bearing little relation to holding size, implying a wide range of Iabour-intensity. Only a third of the holdings are exclusively part-time ventures, the remainder having at least some full-time labour. Part-time holdings are large-ly under 10 acres.

With only one exception, all holdings grow horticultural prod-uce. Apart from some of the very small holdings, the predominant crop is grass. Almost 60% of the holdings below 10 acres grow no cereals or fodder crops, which suggests that they are dependent, upon outside sources of feedstuffs. Holdings over 10 acres are on, whole a good deal more mixed, with something like a fifth or a sixth of their acreage under cereal and fodder crops.

Predictably, almost all holdings have poultry. There is generally a mixture of livestock on the holdings. Three-quarters had three or more kinds of livestock. Interestingly, acreage did not seem to be a major constraint on the range of livestock kept, except on holdings under 3 acres. The emphasis on different livestock can be seen in the table:

Continued