asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing the gross value of sales of Northern Ireland farms in each of the last five years, and also showing the capital investment for each of those years in total and for machinery, in both real and actual terms.

[pursuant to his reply, 12 November 1979]: The value of sales of farms in Northern Ireland of two hectares and over made in the last five calendar years when the land remained in agricultural use is given below together with the same information expressed in terms of 1975 purchasing power.

	Actual value	"Real" terms (1975 purchasing power) (1)
	£ millions	£ millions
1974	7·95	9·88
1975	7·02	7·02
1976	13·28	11·40
1977	14·23	10·54
1978	21·05	14·40
(1) Adjusted according to changes in the United Kingdom general index of retail prices re-based to year 1975=100.

Estimates of the value of capital investment in fixed assets and equipment in total and in plant and machinery are given below for the financial years 1974–75 to 1977–78. Appropriate price indices to convert this information to "real"

and (

[pursuant to his reply, 12 November 1979]: It is not possible to allocate fixed costs to derive net profits from suckler cows. Gross margins which do not take account of fixed costs are given in the table.terms are not available for Northern Ireland.

	Total capital Investment in fixed assets and equipment	Investment plant and machinery
	£ millions	£ millions
1974–75	46·25	14·42
1975–76	50·97	22·19
1976–77	59·74	34·00
1977–78	74·45	45·51