Primary economics

There are many odd things about the town of Cambridge and last weekend I was reminded of the cows. Cambridge must be one of the very few cities in the country which can boast commercial cows within the city limits - not counting here the cows to be found in places like Vauxhall City Farm (see reference 1). One of the small herds involved lives on Midsummer Common, illustrated.

My thought when we came across them was why would a farmer bother? How could it possibly be worth his while to get his cows to and from such a place, a place where they were apt to be disturbed by all kinds of drunken geniuses, pouring out at night from the many neighbouring pubs and colleges? Not to mention the once famous King Street Run. Does the local council have to pay the farmer to put some cows there to attract the tourists? Who pays for the fences and the cunning cow-proof gaps in them for people and their bicycles? The cattle grids which there must be dotted about the place?

A few clicks and I am at AHDB (see reference 2) which tells me that I can buy an average bit of grazing land in England for £20,000 the hectare or rent it for £300 per hectare per year, a return of around 1.5%, scarcely better than the current rate of interest, and a good deal less than those of the recent past. Although not so far from the 2% which I recall as being the long standing return on agricultural land in the olden days, say the nineteenth century.

A hectare is 10,000 square metres, or a 100 metre square patch of land - with, for comparative purposes, Jesus Green Swimming Pool, the subject of a recent post, being 90 metres long. Midsummer Common must contain quite a lot of them, let us suppose 50.

Let us suppose that you can sell a cow for £1,000 and that with one hectare you can grow one such cow a year.

Let us further suppose that one man or woman can look after 100 cows and that such a person costs you £50,000 inclusive of VAT and medical insurance, that is to say £500 a cow.

This leaves £200 per cow profit, or per hectare, for our putative farming capitalist. In the case of Midsummer Common, a grand total of £10,000. All of which might fuel a modest amount of wining & dining for the Agricultural Committee of Cambridgeshire County Council.

Maybe I need to spend more time with the Archers.

Reference 1: http://vauxhallcityfarm.org/.

Reference 2: http://dairy.ahdb.org.uk/.