ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the various aggregate indicators employed by the EU and UK, the general methodology underlying them and the pictures they describe. It provides a similar treatment to the microeconomic measures. Net Value Added (NVA) from agricultural activity can be divided up in alternative ways to give measures appropriate to particular policy circumstances. Basically two approaches could be employed, one based on factor function and the other on ownership. A thoroughgoing distribution by function, distributing NVA according to the contributions of land, capital, labour and entrepreneurship, would make charges for all the land, whether owned by the fanner or not, and for all the capital employed. Five aggregate income indicators are published by the MAFF; Net Product, Income from Agriculture of Total Labour Input, Total Income from Farming, Farming Income, and one cash-flow measure. Under the European Economic Area (EAA) there is a change in the basic unit and hence in what constitutes the agricultural part of the economy.
