Wales Bioregional Observatory

Wales is overwhelmingly pastoral. Permanent pasture and rough grazing dominate the farmed landscape, a consequence of steep valleys, thin soils, and high rainfall that make arable farming marginal across most of the country.

Arable acreage has collapsed: from 328,000 hectares in 1867 to under 110,000 today. The brief 1940s spike is the wartime ploughing campaign. Every upland field pressed into service for grain.

Sheep numbers tell the story of Welsh agriculture in a single line. From 2.4 million in 1867, the national flock grew relentlessly through the twentieth century, peaking at 11.8 million in 1999, buoyed by EEC headage payments.

Since then it has shed nearly 3 million animals. Subsidy reform decoupled payments from headage, the 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis culled a generation of breeding stock, and labour shortages and environmental pressures have done the rest.

Welsh cattle farming is splitting in two. The dairy herd, intensive, consolidated, concentrated in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, has held steady since 2004 and even grown.

Beef cattle numbers, by contrast, have shrunk by a quarter over the same period. Beef farming is extensive, low-margin, and tied to the land grades that can't sustain dairy. The gap between the two lines is the story.

The Welsh farm workforce has shrunk by 22% since 1998. Full-time principals are down from 25,800 to 17,200, and hired workers, regular plus casual, have collapsed to just 9,400, the lowest on record.

The deeper change is structural: part-time farming is now the default. More people run farms as a side activity than as a full-time livelihood. The dashed line shows total labour, still falling 28 years on.

Agricultural businesses in Wales are dying faster than they're being born. Quarterly ONS data from 2017 onward shows closures (below the line) outpacing new registrations (above) in almost every quarter. A slow, compounding net loss.

Powys is the exception. In the heart of farming country, the five-year business survival rate sits at 50% against an all-Wales figure of 38%. Long-established farms, diversified incomes, and a deeper generational bench.

The Welsh food system is an inverted pyramid. At the base, 13,255 primary producers (crop and animal farms) generate £2.1 billion in turnover with 30,000 workers. But food service alone (restaurants, cafes, pubs) employs twice as many people for a similar revenue.

Value concentrates as you move away from the farm gate. Wholesale food distributors turn over £5.8 billion, nearly three times what farmers earn. The bars below are coloured by employment density: warm tones mean more jobs per pound of turnover.

Agricultural enterprise is not evenly distributed across Wales. Cardiff leads with 250 enterprises and 270 local units, while Monmouthshire has just 45. Urban councils in the south Wales valleys (Rhondda Cynon Taf, Caerphilly) show surprisingly strong numbers, driven by food processing and service businesses rather than primary farming.

The dashed line marks the Wales average. Councils above it tend to have a mix of food chain activity; those below are either very rural with few large holdings or heavily urbanised with limited agricultural footprint.

Pasture dominates, the flock is shrinking, beef is in retreat, the workforce is ageing out, and businesses close faster than they open. Yet the food chain built on top of Welsh farming employs over 160,000 people and turns over £15 billion.

These layers (land, livestock, labour, enterprise, value) sit on top of each other. Explore them together on the full interactive map below.