Economy of Cornwall

[7] Cornwall's unique culture, spectacular landscape and mild climate make it a popular tourist destination, despite being somewhat distant from the United Kingdom's main population centres.

[17] The expansion of the railway system in the 19th century led to the export of vegetable products, including flowers, becoming a profitable business for Cornwall.

Because farmers in need of money often sold their corn to passing ships which led to famine such sales had to be prohibited by order.

It was collected and burnt in large kilns for about five hours until it liquified when a group of men would turn it over with long-handled iron forks.

In a 1987 study of the Scillonian economy, S. Neate found that many farms on the islands were struggling to remain profitable due to increasing costs and strong competition from overseas producers, with resulting diversification into tourism.

[21][22][23] Flower farming was also carried on in parts of west Cornwall but has declined due to increasing costs and strong competition from overseas producers.

A narrow belt of land along the south coast of Cornwall east of the River Fal however supported a more mixed type of agriculture.

"With its mineral wealth and large fishing interests Cornwall was less absolutely dependent on its agriculture, and farming was frequently a part-time occupation and of second rank in the county."

The south-western counties were progressive in the use of manures and burn beating (or devonshiring) to improve the soil of moorland, waste or fallow land.

[28] The effects of climate, soils and topography resulted in livestock-rearing being of greater agricultural importance than crops in the south-western counties as a whole and in Cornwall in particular.

[31] Though less than in Devon cider production was a significant proportion of farm output in some districts such as the south east and the number of orchards increased in the latter half of the 17th century.

Hops were grown mainly in the south east of the county and particularly in the parishes of Goran, Mevagissey and St Michael Caerhays.

He notes that two centuries earlier the art of husbandry was little practised by the Cornish, who let out their land to tenants from Devon and Somerset who kept cattle on it while they concentrated on tin mining.

By the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign the farmers of Cornwall were in a position to supply their own population and to export corn to Spain and elsewhere.

Seaweed, to which sand is sometimes added, was also used and near the fishing ports decayed pilchards and salt used in curing them were both bought at a low price for use as manure.

Kelp burning only produces 2–3 percent sodium carbonate and during the 19th century more efficient commercial and industrial methods ended the practice locally.

Rights to areas of kelp were allocated to families and in 1787 Thomas Woodcock, his son and James Ashford (all of St Martin's) were accused of "having trespassed on his (Nance's) preserves".

After the hearing, the court decided that the cutting of ore-weed and the making of kelp on Teän was the prescriptive right of Nance, and the trespassers were fined 2s 6d each.

Extraction of slate and roadstone by quarrying still continues on a reduced scale: it was formerly an important industry and it has been carried on in Cornwall ever since the Middle Ages.

This allowed Cornwall County Council the opportunity to expand its Mineral Tramways Project of walking trails along with re-instatement of engine houses and other places of mining interest.

[50][51] The opportunity to reopen a quarry, at Dean near St Keverne on the Lizard Peninsula, to source at least 3m tonnes of stone for the proposed Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project, has been opposed by local residents.

[citation needed] On 30 September 2022, Spaceport Cornwall was officially launched, with the opening of their Space Systems Integration Facility (SSIF).

[58] The largest urban area in Cornwall, comprising Camborne, Pool and Redruth, is characterised by pockets of intense deprivation, with causes and consequences difficult to disentangle, the social effects being "endogenous" to the region since the close of mining as an employer.

[62] This opinion is based upon geography, arguing that having the Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in the same region as Gloucestershire would be comparable as linking London with Yorkshire.

[64] In October 2007 Lib Dem MP Andrew George stated in a press release, "Just because the Government has approached the whole Regional Devolution agenda in entirely the wrong way, does not mean to say that the project itself should be ditched.

In 1998 Cornwall was recognised by the UK Government as having "distinct cultural and historical factors reflecting a Celtic background",[66] thus allowing it to be separated in a regional and economic sense from Devon.

Objective One funding has been used in supporting and developing a largely indigenous food and farming industry which is now worth nearly two billion pounds a year.

[citation needed] Priorities for the 2008–13 tranche have an emphasis on information and communication technologies, competitiveness, enterprise and a providing a skilled workforce.

[69] The Gaia Energy Centre at Delabole, opened in 2001 as a tourist attraction (on the site of Britain's first commercial windfarm).

The majority of the funding for the centre came from Europe, with £300,000 grants from Objective One and SWDRA, the South West Regional Development Agency.