Mr. Wm. Rossasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish a table in the Official Report to show for each member State in the EEC for each of the last two years, available in each State, the income per head of farmers, the income for each farm unit and the average income per family in each State.
§ Mr. BishopI regret that information on the basis requested is not available. Some information on farm incomes in each member State is, however, published in "Farm Accountantcy Data Network for the EEC. Results 1976" and the parallel report for the previous year, copies of which are available in the Library of the House. The relevant476W figures in these reports are obtained from samples of farms of different sizes and types, but the coverage of the samples is not adequate to permit calculation of representative, weighted average results for each country. In addition, comparisons between national results are affected by differences in accounting methods and by exchange rates. Subject to these limitations, sample averages for each country which are given in the reports are shown in the following table.
AVERAGE LABOUR INCOME PER ANNUAL LABOUR UNIT* FOR ALL TYPES OF FARMING European units of account (EUA) Sample for Number of farms in sample† 1975 1976 Germany 2,009 6,039 5,204 France 2,530 4,875 5,500 Italy 1,738 3,338 5,035 Belgium 522 10,764 10,092 Luxembourg 42 6,596 5,079 Netherlands 1,152 12,333 12,855 Denmark 1,256 10,675 6,564 Republic of Ireland 590 5,104 7,240 United Kingdom 1,165 7,458 8,651 * Labour income per annual labour unit is the income per year averaged over all persons working on the farm, after charging a notional return at 5 per cent. on tenants' capital. † Number of farms appearing in the samples for both 1975 and 1976.