Information on the number of new entrants to farming is not collected.
The following table shows the number of principal farmers, spouses and business partners, split by those inside and outside the hill and upland areas which have been designated as Less Favoured Areas (LFAs), on 1 June in England in each of the last five years. These figures indicate the net change in the number of farmers.
Thousand 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Full-time LFA 15.4 14.9 15.0 16.4 15.6 Non-LFA 85.1 83.2 82.3 80.4 76.1 All 100.5 98.1 97.9 96.7 91.8 Part-time LFA 15.5 16.0 16.1 20.0 20.2 Non-LFA 103.2 110.2 108.9 107.1 107.0 All 118.7 126.2 125.0 127.1 127.1 Notes: 1. These data are collected by the June Survey of Agriculture. The results of this survey are subject to sampling error. More details of the survey are at: http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/statnot/june_eng.pdf 2. The way in which we classify holdings to Favoured Areas was improved in 2006 which has led to a break in the series. The data from 2006 on are therefore not comparable with that from earlier years. 3. The most recent detailed information on new entrants to farming was a research report 'Entry to and Exit from Farming' which was commissioned by DEFRA in 2003. This is available on the DEFRA website at: http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/reports/entryexit/default.asp