ABSTRACT
ALC maps were primarily intended as a planning tool, to identify and protect the best agricultural land, and this purpose they have served well. However, they are described by Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) as ‘provisional’ because the amount of fieldwork that went into locating grade boundaries varied considerably from place to place. In some areas the grading was based on detailed ground observations of soil and topography, while elsewhere existing cropping patterns were the main guide. Thus, DEFRA state that parcels of land of less than 80ha cannot be reliably graded using ALC maps alone, and further investigations are necessary. Moreover, the brief descriptive booklets accompanying the maps are insufficiently detailed to give the reasoning behind the grading of a particular piece of land.
