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Abstract: In the United Kingdom, and some other European countries, the mushroom growing industry has become increasingly concentrated. This has occurred in most branches of agriculture and horticulture, but the case of mushrooms is rather an extreme one, paralleled only by broiler chickens. Statistics of holdings (farms) growing mushrooms in the United Kingdom are rather scanty. The last comprehensive survey (98%) was made as far back as 1958/59, when the U.K. total was about 550 holdings. In 1966 a partial survey showed that in spite of the very large increase in output, the number of holdings had remained much the same. In 1958/59, there was a considerable range of size of enterprise. At the lower end, 96 enterprises in England and Wales each produced less than 5,000 lb, and at the upper end 18 produced 200,000 lb or more. Since then the average size must have greatly increased. Most of the forty-eight counties in England and Wales produce some mushrooms commercially, but nearly half come from a single county. West Sussex. Production in Suffolk has increased recently, and there is also a significant amount in Northern Ireland. In 1958/59 18 growers accounted for 49% of total sales. By 1966, 19 growers in the partial survey of that year accounted for nearly two-thirds of survey sales, and in 1968, 15 growers for nearly threequarters. About half the growers between them produced less than 10% of the total. All these surveys, carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, are based on a legal definition of a holding. This takes no account of ownership or marketing, but is concerned with land occupation, and unless several holdings occupied by the same person or firm are close at hand and sharing their resources, they will be shown as separate holdings. If we could adopt an alternative definition which treated as a single holding all that are run by the same person, the total would be reduced, and the average size and degree of concentration enhanced. Indeed Vaughan (1970) has estimated that three firms control, though they do not necessarily operate, 38% of production capacity. A further eight control 26%, so that eleven between them account for 64%.
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