MANY farmers in Herefordshire have incomes well below the national average, a National Farmers' Union boss said this week.

According to the latest UK agricultural review, the average farmer has just £10,000 - way below the minimum wage - for reinvestment and to live on, with overall farm incomes down 71 per cent since 1995.

But Michaelchurch farmer Elwyn Maddy, regional NFU chairman of the West Midlands, said he understood the incomes of many in the Herefordshire area were considerably lower. A lot of livestock farmers would have incomes dramatically below the £10,000 figure, he said.

"My biggest fear is that at the end of the year we will see a massive rise in farm debts because returns are just not matching costs."

Dairy farmers are now getting out of the industry because of over supply and processors chasing the same milk. "A lot of farmers will have to have rent reductions if they are going to survive," said Mr Maddy.

The dramatic figures in the UK review, entitled Farming in Crisis, include 60,000 farmers and workers having left the industry since 1998.

It states that between 1997 and 2000, the value of farmers' assets have plunged by £1 billion while their debts rose by £700 million.

"We are suffering serious low commodity prices, the strength of the pound is knocking us and we are suffering imports being dumped on us. We are running into obstacles all the time," he said. Farmers, he added, had lost confidence in the Government's commitment to them. Nationally, the NFU says it is vital that the Government assists the industry in next month's Comprehensive Spending Review.

Ben Gill, national president, said: "By any assessment, our latest analysis of the current state of farming is shocking. All our anecdotal evidence suggests that further large numbers of farmers and growers are going to quit the industry - either because they have to or because they see no future.

"Never have I experienced so many in agriculture questioning their future and the Government's commitment to it."

l The Tenant Farmers' Association is using its presence at this year's Royal Show to undertake the need for concerted action from the Government to implement the recommendations of the Curry Report into Food and Farming.