HC Deb 08 March 1993 vol 220 cc395-6W
Mr. Ainger

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will include the livestock identification scheme in the Government's review of the scope for deregulation; and if he will make a statement.

1 The classification of holdings into farm types is based upon a system of estimating the dominant activity on each holding using standard gross margins (SGMs). Conceptually the SGM is the difference between the value of the output of each activity and the variable costs of the necessary inputs to the activity. Specialist cereal holdings are therefore characterised by cereals production being the dominant activity. 2 There are normally three cereal production surveys in the course of a year. The first is around August-September towards the end of the harvest period which provides a first estimate of cereal production. The second survey is conducted during November which produces another provisional estimate of total production. The third and final survey is in April and the results of this survey are used as the final cereal production estimates. The table has therefore been produced using only the holdings responsible to the April survey. 3 No distinction is made between winter and spring sown varieties of wheat in the cereal production survey.

Mr. Ainger

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his best estimate of the number of commercial cereal growers in Wales.

Mr. David Hunt

There were 250 specialist cereal growers in Wales according to the June 1992 agricultural census.