Agriculture, Energy and Climate Change

Agricultural Statistics

A compendium of agricultural statistics is available for the years 1866-1966:

• A Century Of Agricultural Statistics 1866-1966 (76MB)

Subsequent statistics on agriculture and food production produced by the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF) can be found in the Relevant Periodicals section. These act as a bridge to the data currently produced by Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA)

• DEFRA Agricultural datasets

James Ruddock-Broyd has provided a compilation of data on the performance of Agricultural Co-operatives in the 1970s and 1980s. A spreadsheet of data on turnover is available below. An additional spreadsheet on profits will be available shortly.

• Agricultural Co-operatives Turnover (xlsx)

The underlying data from printed and written reports can be found below for reference.

• Agricultural Co-operatives data (pdf)

Historical Energy Statistics from 1700

Professor Roger Fouquet of The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the LSE has compiled a data set on energy consumption starting in the C18th:

• Data set on the consumption of energy and energy services (1700-2010)

He produced a related database for the National Infrastructure Commission that collated relevant historical energy statistics and provides time series data on historical energy consumption, energy prices and carbon dioxide emissions in the UK.

• NIC Historic Energy Dataset

The Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (DUKES) produced by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy provides many useful historical datasets on energy usage since the mid-C19th:

• Historical coal data: coal production, availability and consumption since 1853
• Historical coke and breeze data: coal carbonized and coke and breeze produced at coke ovens since 1920
• Historical gas data: gas production and consumption and fuel input since 1920
• Oil and Petroleum Imports since 1920
• Historical Electricity Data since 1920

Additional historical data on global energy trends from the 1960s are provided by BP in their annual Statistical Review of World Energy:

• BP Statistical Review of World Energy

Met Office Data on Temperature and Rainfall since 1659

Researchers at the Met Office Hadley Centre produce and maintain a range of datasets of meteorological variables for use in climate monitoring and climate research. Their website provides access to these datasets or, in some cases, links to other places from where where they can be obtained. Links to long time series on temperature and rainfall are linked below:

• Hadley Centre Central England Temperature (HadCET) dataset
• HadUKP - UK regional precipitation series

Historical Emissions and Climate Change data from 1850

The PRIMAP-hist dataset by Johannes Gütschow, Louise Jeffery and Robert Gieseke at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research combines several published datasets to create a comprehensive set of greenhouse gas emission pathways for every country and Kyoto gas covering the years 1850 to 2016, and all UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) member states, as well as most non-UNFCCC territories. The data resolves the main IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2006 categories. For CO2, CH4, and N2O subsector data for Energy, Industrial Processes and Agriculture is available. Version 2.0 of the PRIMAP-hist dataset does not include emissions from Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).

• The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series

This data can be supplemented with official emissions data from 1990 produced by ONS and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy estimates:

• Environmental Accounts Data from ONS
• Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy estimates

One of the main differences between the official sources is whether estimates are on a territory basis or residency basis. ONS air emissions are on a residency basis. This means that whilst the majority of air emissions will be released into the UK environment, some emissions from UK-resident economic units will be released into the environment of the rest of the world. Air emission accounts for the UK exclude emissions released here by tourists and foreign transport operations and include the emissions of UK residents abroad. UK air emissions statistics on a territory basis are published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The ONS provide bridging tables between these estimates and other estimates provided for international bodies such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Agricultural Statistics

Guides to sources of agricultural and food statistics can be found here:

• Agricultural & Food Statistics
• House of Commons Library Paper - Agriculture: Historical Statistics

The following titles are available to select in the dropdown menus of this section.

• Agricultural Statistics
• Annual Review of Agriculture
• Development of the Oil and Gas Resources of the UK
• Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) 1938-1994
• Energy Trends

The Digest of UK Energy Statistics from 2000 can be found here:

• Digest of UK Energy Statistics Archive 2000-2012
• Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2013-present

Please select a publication title and year from the boxes below to narrow down the list. Alternatively type in a general search term. The available excel and pdf files are shown in the table. If the publication you are looking for is not in this section please see the complete list of downloadable publications. 

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