HORTICULTURAL CHANGE AND THE HORTICULTURAL BUILDINGS AND ORCHARD REPLANTING GRANT SCHEME IN ENGLAND

The Horticultural Buildings and Orchard Replanting Grant Scheme, intro duced in the United Kingdom in 1989, encourages horticultural growers to modernise their glasshouse and/or apple and pear enterprises. In th is paper, the Scheme is described and the farm and farmer characterist ics of a sample of adopters and nonadopters in England are examined, a s well as the reasons for adoption and nonadoption. Adopters are shown to have larger, usually owner-occupied, holdings, more specialised fa rming systems, and higher net profits than have non-adopters; they hav e a history of making investments in the business. Considerable resist ance towards the Scheme was found among nonadopters who, together with many adopters, feel that the Scheme does not address the main problem s facing the horticultural industry in the United Kingdom.