Agriculture has not joined the rest of the UK economy in escaping from recession, recording its sixth successive quarter of declining output in the last three months of 2009.

Official data showed the UK economy returning – just – to growth in the October-to-December period, ending the longest recession since records began more than half a century ago

However, farming could not keep pace even with the marginal 0.1% growth in the overall economy, recording shrinkage of 0.6%.

That left agriculture - whose development the government attempted to promote earlier this month in a 20-year food strategy - as the last sector still mired in recession, suffering a run of successive quarterly declines stretching back to summer 2008.

Subsidy support 

For 2009 as a whole, farm output fell by 5.1%, making it a less prosperous year even than 2007, when sector output shrank by 4.8%.

And, for UK arable farmers, there are doubts that this year will foster much of an improvement in output, given the softening grain markets.

"Sadly, there is little to suggest wheat prices will move much higher than £110 a tonne this year, meaning most arable farmers will once again be relying on subsidy payments for their profits," land agency Knight Frank said in a report last week.

"Many livestock businesses are still worryingly not showing a real return on investment, even thought prices are relatively healthy," the briefing added, noting industry estimates that farmers need to sell lambs at £4 ($6.50) a kilogramme, dead weight, just to cover costs.