Farming and the Countryisde

FARMING AND THE COUNTRYSIDE

Changes to the Uk Countryisde

• Decline in Primary employment - Causing the diversification of farming into other profit-makng activities
• The development of leisure, recreation and tourism - cauing many rural villages to turn into tourist honeypots.
• The depopulation of rural areas - causing a loss of service provision and a spiral of decline.
• The trend for retired people to move to the countryside - an ageing population structure.
• The development of commuter settlements - Causing suburbanisation of the countryside close to urban areas.

A decline in primary employment - Primary industry invo0lves extracting raw materials from the land or the sea. It includes farming, fishing, forestry and mining. Decline in number of people employed in primary industry over last 60 years .Coal mining fell from nearly 600,000 in 1960 to 10,000 in 1995. In 1990 600,000 employed in farming in 2007 now 500,000. So increased mechanicisation has lead to the reduction of workers needed. Also farming  has little pay for long hours which puts people off and mining extraction has a higher availability in cheap imports.

British farmers has had to diversify buildings and land o make more monet to survive. in 2005 farmers earned 23% less for food than in 1988. 

Farms have changed sheds into commercial units for small firms e.g. Elms Farm has a unit occupied by 'Simply Wrought' who make wrought iron gates and signs.

Farmers also use there own business by manfacturing food and selling it on supermarkets e.g. The Keebles in Yorkshire has 350 Sows were going out of business, due to cheap imports in 1999. So they made there own bacon and now have a turnover of £2 milliion.

The decline in primary employment