The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Regulations 1980

Interpretation

2.—(1) In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires—

“agriculture” includes horticulture, fruit growing, seed growing, dairy farming and livestock breeding and keeping, the use of land as grazing land, meadow land, osier land, market gardens and nursery grounds, and the use of land for woodlands where that use is ancillary to the farming of land for other agricultural purposes, and “agricultural” and references to farming shall be construed accordingly;

“agricultural business” means a business consisting in, or such part of any business as consists in, the pursuit of agriculture, including the storage, the transport and the preparation for market of the produce of the business;

“agricultural produce” includes anything (whether live or dead) produced in the course of agriculture;

“the appropriate Minister” means—

(a)

in relation to England or Northern Ireland, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food;

(b)

in relation to any other part of the United Kingdom, the Secretary of State;

“approved” means approved by the appropriate Minister in writing, and “approve” and “approval” shall be construed accordingly;

“earned income” in relation to an agricultural business, means the revenue of the business as assessed by the appropriate Minister, provided that in any such assessment the said revenue shall be taken to include net inventory changes and farmhouse consumption less remuneration of capital invested in the agricultural business and such charges and expenses as that Minister may consider reasonable;

“ECU” means the unit of account of the European Economic Community defined in Article 1 of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3180/78(1), and any reference in these regulations to a specified number of ECU in relation to any expenditure shall be taken to be a reference to the sterling equivalent of that number of ECU applicable on the 1st January of the calendar year in which the conditions for granting aid are fulfilled;

“eligible agricultural business” has the meaning assigned to that expression by regulation 4;

“eligible person” has the meaning assigned to that expression by regulation 3;

“horticultural produce” means—

(a)

fruit;

(b)

vegetables of a kind grown for human consumption, including fungi, but not including maincrop potatoes or peas grown for seed or for harvesting dry;

(c)

flowers, pot plants and decorative foliage;

(d)

herbs;

(e)

seeds (other than pea seeds), bulbs and other material, being seeds, bulbs or material for—

(i)

sowing or planting for the production of fruit, of the vegetables, flowers, plants or foliage mentioned in (b) and (c) above or of herbs, or

(ii)

reproduction of the seeds, bulbs or other material planted; or

(f)

trees and shrubs, other than trees grown for the purpose of afforestation;

but does not include hops;

“horticultural production business” means an agricultural business consisting in, or such part of any agricultural business as consists in, the growing in the United Kingdom of horticultural produce for sale or the growing of such produce for sale and its storage, transport or preparation for market;

“labour unit” means the amount of work, other than work done by contractors, which would in the opinion of the appropriate Minister occupy the full time, not exceeding 2,300 hours per year, of a full-time worker;

“less-favoured area” means land—

(a)

which is situated in an area included in the list of less-favoured farming areas adopted by the Council or the Commission of the European Communities under Article 2 of Council Directive No. 75/268/EEC of 28th April 1975(2) and consists predominantly of mountains, hills or heath, and

(b)

which is, or by improvement could be made, suitable for use for the breeding, rearing and maintenance of sheep or cattle but not, in the opinion of the appropriate Minister, for the carrying on, to any material extent, of dairy farming, the production, to any material extent, of fat sheep or fat cattle or the production of crops in quantity materially greater than that necessary to feed the number of sheep or cattle capable of being maintained on the land;

“livestock” includes any creature kept for the production of food, wool, skins or fur, or for the purpose of its use in the farming of land;

“preparation for market”, in relation to produce, does not include canning, bottling, pulping or cooking, or preserving by sterilising, by freezing, by de-hydrating, by heat or by chemical process.

(2) Unless the context otherwise requires any reference in these regulations—

(a) to a numbered regulation shall be construed as a reference to the regulation bearing that number in these regulations, or

(b) to “the Schedule” shall be construed as a reference to the Schedule to these regulations.

(1)

O.J. No. L379.

(2)

O.J. No. L128.