HC Deb 03 February 1975 vol 885 cc395-6W
Mr. Wakeham

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what statistics of agricultural productivity per worker and per acre are available for the United Kingdom and other members of the EEC; and if he will publish the latest figures in table form in the Official Report.

Mr. Bishop

For the United Kingdom, information on the gross agricultural product per person engaged in the industry was provided in Table 18 of the 1974 Annual Review While Paper (Cmnd. 5565). Corresponding figures are not readily available for other members of the EEC but the European Commission's 1974 Report on the state of agriculture in the Community provided the following figures for the annual rate of growth in labour productivity in the Six:

LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY
Country Annual Rate of Growth 1967–69 to 1971–73
Per cent.
W. Germany 5.7
France 4.1
Italy 5.2
Netherlands 6.5
Belgium 7.8
Luxembourg 3.7

The Commission shows a figure for the United Kingdom of 5 per cent. but the figures in Cmnd. 5565 indicate an annual growth in productivity in the United Kingdom of 6½ per cent. for this period.

I regret that corresponding figures for productivity per acre are not available. In the case of the United Kingdom this is because of changes in the definition and coverage of the agricultural acreage statistics.

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