Farming in crisis
BBC News Online looks at the causes, the symptoms and the effects - both in general and in a number of case studies from around the UK.

Why farmers think they deserve help
UK farmers will get the help they want, but they need to make significant changes.

Prices - years of feast and famine
The decline in farm prices is dramatic, but closer inspection reveals a more complicated picture than you might think.

Pigs - overproduction and other factors
One of the main reasons for the big fall in pigmeat prices is over-production, but farmers also face problems with increased costs.

Form-filling infuriates farmers
Farmers have to be as adept with red-tape as they are with fertiliser - and they hate it.

Sorting out the sheep to cull
Slaughtering the sheep UK farmers cannot sell might answer their demands, but it raises many questions.

Stress and suicide in the country
The effects of the continuing crisis are not just economic - the impact on families and stress caused to individuals is causing a huge amount of concern.

Lodgers to llamas: Making ends meet
Farmers are increasingly looking to alternative or supplementary enterprises to make ends meet.

'Bad businessmen and bad farmers'
Former chief economist for the NFU, Sean Rickard, has enraged the farming community with his views that small farmers are bad businessmen, and should not be given any further grants.

Farmers log on to profits
Farmers are turning to direct sale markets and the Internet to survive as the industry continues to suffer its worst crisis since the 1930s.

Better diet could worsen crisis
If farming is in crisis now, it would be in freefall if we switched to a healthier diet.

NE England: A hillfarmer's story
Richard Betton farms in the North Pennines - life is normally hard, but now he faces his worst-case scenario.

N Ireland - a pig farmer's tale
The slump in farming fortunes has hit hard in Northern Ireland, where incomes fell by 57% last year - twice the national average.

Grain farmer sees the bright side
East Anglian grain farmer Adrian Peck says restructuring is the only way to survive.

Scotland: The beef industry's challenge
The BSE crisis meant beef producers like Aberdeenshire farmer Peter McKilligan met their pain barrier earlier than those in other sectors.

Wales: A way of life at risk
The Hughes family has farmed in Llangollen's Horseshoe Pass for many generations, but this could be the last.

Midwest farmers going bust
Corporate farms have been banned in South Dakota, but small farmers are still struggling to survive in America's Midwest.