Britain: An official handbook > 1956

INDUSTRY
145
Scottish Crofts
Crofters are tenant farmers resident in one of the seven Scottish counties known
as crofting counties—Argyll, Caithness, Inverness, Orkney, Ross and Cromarty,
Sutherland, and Shetland—whose holdings are each rented at less than £50 a year
and are not more than 50 acres in area. In 1947 there were in these counties 20,918
crofts out of a total of 23,209 separate holdings. In 1952-53 the value of the annual
production of these crofts was £7.9 million, about half the total agricultural out¬
put of the seven counties and 5.66 per cent of that of Scotland as a whole. The
problems of the crofting areas—such as declining population and falling agricul¬
tural production—led to the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry in 1951.
In its report, published in 1954 (C?nd. 9091), the Commission recommended the
setting up of a Crofters Commission to regulate crofting in the crofting counties.
The recommendations were accepted by the Government, which passed the
Crofters (Scotland) Act, 1955, under which a Crofters Commission (see p. 154)
was appointed and started operations on xst October 1955.
Changes since 1870
In the middle of the nineteenth century Britain was largely self-sufficient in agri¬
cultural production. Then, wool, grain and, later, meat—all produced cheaply from
virgin lands overseas—were increasingly imported, and, as a result, the farming
industry had to adapt itself to the changing conditions by concentrating much more
on milk, eggs, pigs and horticultural produce. These changes in production and
types of farming in successive attempts to meet changes of fortune resulted in a
continuous trend away from an agricultural industry based mainly on grain to one
based more on livestock and livestock products, and, among crops, an increasing
emphasis on vegetables.
The arable area in Britain declined continuously from 1872 until 1939, except
during the first world war; the meat, dairy and poultry industries becoming in¬
creasingly dependent on imported feedingstuffs. The outbreak of the second world
war was, however, followed by an immediate reversal of farming practice, for short¬
age of shipping space for imports demanded a greatly increased home production of
crops for direct human consumption such as wheat and potatoes, largely at the
expense of livestock and livestock products other than milk. The post-war world
food shortage and Britain’s balance of payments problems made it necessary for
Britain to maintain increased grain production, but since 1947 an expansion of out¬
put of livestock, livestock products and animal feedingstuffs has been encouraged
concurrently with the maintenance of a high level of production of grain and other
crops.
Recent Trends
Recent trends in agricultural policy have resulted in greater emphasis on stock¬
rearing for meat and less stress on further increases in milk production.
The use of agricultural land for the various crops and the numbers of livestock
on farms in the United Kingdom since 1924 are shown in Tables 18 and 19 overleaf.
PRODUCTION
Before the second world war, Britain produced about 31 per cent of its food
supplies (in terms of calories for human consumption). By 1954 this had risen to
nearly 42 per cent. The comparable figures in terms of values are 36 per cent pre¬
war and about 49 per cent in 1953-54. Imports of food and feedingstuffs accounted