The agricultural economy has changed greatly in recent years within the county. The county is on the western edge of England which has been historically pastoral as opposed to the east which was more
arable.
Beef Probably Hereford's most famous export is its
Hereford beef cattle. Herefords are docile but extremely hardy creatures and these attributes have led to their proliferation across the world, particularly the US, Canada, South America and Australia. The breed is so gentle that a Hereford bull was used as the mascot for
Hereford United Football Club for many years, led around the club's
Edgar Street ground before major matches.
Fruit '', a record of the apple and pear varieties grown in the county in the nineteenth century. The county is famous for its apple and pear orchards, and its cider. There are many orchards around the county but not as many as there once were. In the last few years, soft
fruits such as
strawberries have become a new and rapidly expanding area of the agricultural economy of the county. One of the main reasons for this was the introduction of the
polytunnel or French tunnel. This allows the strawberries to be grown for a far longer season and with a higher quality (with no blemishes from the rain). The strawberries are mainly picked by
Eastern European workers who come over for the season and often earn more money than they could working in their own country and with the bonus, for many of them, of learning or improving their English. The polytunnels have been a major issue in the county, as some people see them as a "blot on the landscape". Although some polytunnel sites are illegal,
Herefordshire Council has turned a blind eye in the belief that agriculture must be allowed to innovate; otherwise it will stagnate and the county will suffer.
Dairy Previously, most farms in the county had
dairy cattle. Due to the cost of investing in new equipment, long hours,
BSE,
foot-and-mouth disease and mainly falling milk prices, the county's milk production has drastically reduced, with only a few farms still in dairy farming.
Potatoes The county is historically pastoral. The soils are mostly clay, meaning that large scale potato production was very difficult, as tractors were not powerful enough to pull the large machinery required to harvest the crop. Around the early 1990s new technology and more powerful machines overcame this problem. Potato production started to increase, fuelled by a few other key factors: The previously pastoral soils had not had potatoes grown in them; consequently they were not infected with
eelworm (
Heterodera rostochiensis and
Heterodera pallida), which in the east of England had to be sprayed against weekly (a large cost). Also, the clay soil produced an unblemished potato of the highest grade. The intensive nature of the crop meant that potatoes could be grown viably on a given field in only one of every five years. Because potato growers always needed more land than they owned, they rented extra. This demand for rental fields came at a time when the rest of the industry was struggling and in serious decline. The potato farmers' rents of £300–500 per acre (as opposed to normally £80 per acre) were very helpful to many farmers in a difficult period. ==Emblems==