The Impact of the Foot and Mouth Crisis on Rural Firms
The objective of the research was to gauge the pattern and degree of the impact of the Foot and Mouth crisis on the wider, non-agricultural, rural economy, focusing on the effects on the microbusinesses that comprise the vast majority of rural firms.
- Project Dates: 2001
- Project Leader: Katy Bennett
- Staff: Katy Bennett, Andrew Cattermole, Andrew Donaldson, Craig Elliot, Philip Lowe, Jane Midgley, Jeremy Phillipson and Neil Ward
- Sponsors: Durham County Council
The specific aims of the research were:
(i) to identify the scale and the extent of the impact across different sectors of the rural economy (including sectors likely to be little affected);
(ii) to examine how affected firms are responding to the crisis; and
(iii) to identify what forms of aid measures could ease the short-term problems that affected firms face.
A survey was conducted of a sample of 180 rural microbusinesses drawing on a database of 2000 microbusinesses in the North East of England held by the Centre for Rural Economy.