User Guide
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Example: farmer's age by type of farm
Research question: It seems to be a widely held belief that hill livestock farmers are quite a lot older than other farmers.
Is this actually true?
No one seems to know how this misconception originated but, as the data from the 2003/04 FBS for England shows,
it is quite false (hill livestock farm equates to grazing livestock (LFA) in the table). Only pig farmers and dairy farmers are
younger on average. It is in fact horticulture farmers which have the highest average age.
FBS 2005/06 England: Average age of farmer
Farm type
Average age
| ALL FARM TYPES |
53.30 |
| Cropping |
54.50 |
| Cereals |
54.32 |
| General Cropping |
53.99 |
| Horticulture |
55.74 |
| Livestock |
52.48 |
| Dairy |
51.40 |
| Grazing livestock (lowland) |
54.06 |
| Grazing lifestock (LFA) |
52.15 |
| Mixed and other types |
52.63 |
| Pigs |
48.75 |
| Poultry |
53.93 |
| Mixed |
52.84 |
|
A similar one-way table can be obtained from the
FBS data builder Menu by quoting reference 002194.
Notice how the farm types are grouped; "Cropping" is the wider group encompassing "Cereals",
"General cropping" and "Horticulture"; its value of 54.50 is the (weighted) average of the three subgroups.
This layering is a particular feature of the FBS data builder system which allows data which has to be suppressed at a lower
level to be displayed at a higher level |
Of course, averages are not everything. It may be that there is a 'cluster of older hill farmers which do not show up in the averages.
A fuller picture will be obtained by showing the distribution by age size classes, as in the following table
(FBS data builder Menu reference 002195).
FBS 2005/06 England: Number of farms
|
All Ages |
|---|
| Farm Type |
|
|
<45 |
45:<50 |
|
|
| All Farm Types |
59,224 |
32,476 |
13,809 |
18,667 |
17,890 |
8,858 |
| Cropping |
23,467 |
11,640 |
4,465 |
7,176 |
7,779 |
4,047 |
| Cereals |
11,749 |
6,010 |
2,457 |
3,554 |
3,669 |
2,070 |
| General cropping |
7,131 |
3,419 |
1,551 |
1,868 |
2,566 |
1,146 |
| Horticulture |
4,587 |
2,211 |
457 |
1,754 |
1,544 |
831 |
| Livestock |
27,122 |
15,863 |
6,934 |
8,929 |
7,446 |
3,814 |
| Dairy |
12,325 |
7,510 |
3,341 |
4,170 |
3,512 |
1,302 |
| Grazing livestock (Lowland) |
9,564 |
5,129 |
2,065 |
3,064 |
2,559 |
1,876 |
| Grazing livestock (LFA) |
5,233 |
3,223 |
1,528 |
1,695 |
1,374 |
636 |
| Mixed & other types |
8,635 |
4,973 |
2,411 |
2,562 |
2,665 |
997 |
Footnotes:
F Too few observations to give reliable estimate. Try using confidence intervals instead.
This table cannot be easily interpreted because of the difficulty of comparing between rows.
It would be better if we expressed the figures as percentages of column totals. This is illustrated by the following table.
FBS 2005/06 England: Number of farms
|
All Ages |
<55 |
|
|
55:<65 |
>=60 |
|---|
| Farm Type |
|
|
<45 |
45:<50 |
|
|
| All Farm Types |
100.0% |
54.8% |
23.3% |
31.5% |
30.2% |
15.0% |
| Cropping |
100.0% |
49.6% |
19.0% |
30.6% |
33.1% |
17.2% |
| Cereals |
100.0% |
51.2% |
20.9% |
30.2% |
31.2% |
17.6% |
| General cropping |
100.0% |
47.9% |
21.8% |
26.2% |
36.0% |
16.1% |
| Horticulture |
100.0% |
48.2% |
10.0% |
38.2% |
33.7% |
18.1% |
| Livestock |
100.0% |
58.5% |
25.6% |
32.9% |
27.5% |
14.1% |
| Dairy |
100.0% |
60.9% |
27.1% |
33.8% |
28.5% |
10.6% |
| Grazing livestock (Lowland) |
100.0% |
53.6% |
21.6% |
32.0% |
26.8% |
19.6% |
| Grazing livestock (LFA) |
100.0% |
61.6% |
29.2% |
32.4% |
26.3% |
12.1% |
| Mixed & other types |
100.0% |
57.6% |
27.9% |
29.7% |
30.9% |
11.5% |
Footnotes:
F Too few observations to give reliable estimate. Try using confidence intervals instead.
This table shows that only 12.1% of hill farms are in the over 65 age group, compared with a national percentage of 15.0, and that it
is only in the under 55 age groups where the percentage of hill farms is higher than for all farm types. What this table does bring out
clearly is that it is on lowland livestock farms that there is a preponderance of over 65s.