The Agricultural Industries Confederation has expressed frustration at the impact which errors in Defra statistics can have on the UK grain market planning and operation.
Following last week's revision of the Defra December Survey of Agriculture, in which the wheat area for England was revised down by 6% and the barley area reduced by 15%, AIC has written to Defra to express its concern at the frequency and impact of such errors.
"We only have to think back to late 2003 when statistical blundering managed to wipe 500,000 tonnes off the size of the UK crop. During the most recent marketing season we have seen the industry expressing significant doubts about customs export data, and now we see another 700,000 tonnes taken off the expected size of the recent UK harvest. This latest incident is made worse because it has only just come to light - a full six months since the original figures were published," says Jon Duffy, Chairman of AIC's arable marketing committee.
"At a time when farmers are being encouraged to look more to the marketplace, it is both ironic and disappointing that Defra do not appear to place a significantly high priority on statistical information and therefore continue to starve this area of resource. More and more is being asked of those people who work in this area, but resource availability appears to be heading in the opposite direction."
AIC has called on Defra for an urgent reversal of its policy so that the industry can access a reliable and effective statistics operation.
