Agricultural Character of Parishes in the East Riding of Yorkshire
Introduction
Agriculture plays an important role in shaping the landscape of the East Riding of Yorkshire. However, agricultural land use varies considerably across the area. Some parishes are dominated by cereal and other arable crops, while others contain greater proportions of grassland, vegetables, specialist crops or a mixture of different agricultural land uses.
To better understand these geographical patterns, this analysis uses the Crop Map of England (CROME) 2025 to examine agricultural land use within each parish. The same methodology has also been applied to CROME 2024, allowing patterns of agricultural land use to be explored for both years. An interactive map presenting the results for 2024 and 2025 is available on Farming in ERY.
CROME identifies a detailed range of crops and other land uses. For this analysis, these detailed classes have been combined into a smaller number of broader categories. The area occupied by each category has then been calculated for each parish.
This allows each parish to be described according to its overall agricultural character, such as predominantly arable, predominantly grassland, specialist/horticultural or mixed.
The analysis describes patterns of land use rather than individual farm businesses. A parish classified as predominantly arable, for example, should therefore be understood as an area where arable crops dominate the mapped agricultural land, rather than an area in which every farm is an arable farm.
Agricultural land-use categories
The individual CROME crop types have been grouped into six broader categories:
- Arable
- Grassland & Forage
- Legumes & Protein Crops
- Horticulture & Specialist Crops
- Environmental & Rotational Land
- Non-agricultural / Semi-natural Land
The purpose of grouping the detailed crop types is to make broad patterns easier to identify, compare and communicate.
Arable
The Arable category represents the main broad-acre crops associated with arable cropping systems.
It includes:
- Winter Wheat
- Spring Wheat
- Winter Barley
- Spring Barley
- Winter Oats
- Spring Oats
- Winter Rye
- Winter Oilseed
- Maize
- Canary Seed
These crops have been grouped because they represent broadly similar field-scale cropping systems. Although wheat, barley, oilseed and other crops have different characteristics and uses, combining them provides a useful measure of the overall extent of arable cultivation.
For example, one parish may contain large areas of wheat, barley and oilseed crops. Rather than treating each crop as a completely separate agricultural landscape, their areas are combined to indicate the overall importance of arable agriculture within the parish.
Grassland & Forage
The Grassland & Forage category represents grassland and crops primarily associated with forage production.
It includes:
- Grass
- Temporary Grassland
- Clover
Permanent or longer-term grass and temporary grassland have been combined because both contribute to the grassland element of the agricultural landscape.
Clover is botanically legume, but for this analysis it has been included with Grassland & Forage because the classification is based primarily on their agricultural role as forage crops rather than their botanical classification.
A high proportion of this category therefore indicates a relatively grassland-oriented agricultural landscape.
However, grassland should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of a particular type of livestock farming. CROME identifies the land use rather than the animals or farm businesses associated with the land.
Legumes & Protein Crops
The Legumes & Protein Crops category includes:
- Spring Field Beans
- Winter Field Beans
- Spring Peas
- Winter Peas
Beans and peas are often grown within arable rotations, but they have been kept separate from the broader Arable category.
This provides additional information about the diversity of crops being grown and makes it possible to identify parishes where legumes and protein crops form a noticeable part of the agricultural landscape.
This category should therefore be viewed as a component of the wider cropping system rather than necessarily representing a separate type of farming business.
Horticulture & Specialist Crops
The Horticulture & Specialist Crops category includes vegetables, fruit, herbs and other specialist crops.
It includes:
- Beet
- Carrot
- Celery
- Potato
- Strawberry
- Spring Cabbage
- Dill
- Onions
- Squash
- Perennial Crops and Isolated Trees
These crops are separated from the main Arable category because they represent a distinctly different element of the agricultural landscape from broad-acre cereals and oilseeds.
The individual crops within this group are diverse. However, grouping them together provides a practical way of identifying locations where vegetable, fruit, herb, perennial and other specialist cropping forms an important part of the agricultural landscape.
This is particularly useful because individual specialist crops may occupy relatively small areas when considered separately.
Environmental & Rotational Land
The Environmental & Rotational Land category includes:
- Fallow Land
- Cover Crop
These land uses have been separated from the main production crop categories because they may form part of wider crop rotations or land-management practices rather than representing the main harvested crop.
Keeping them as a separate category also helps show differences in the structure and diversity of agricultural rotations between areas.
For the purposes of this analysis, this category is still counted as part of the wider agricultural area.
Non-agricultural / Semi-natural Land
Some CROME classes do not represent agricultural crop production. These have been grouped under Non-agricultural / Semi-natural Land.
They include:
- Trees and Scrubs, Short Woody Plants and Hedgerows
- Non-vegetated or Sparsely-vegetated Land
- Water
These features are retained within the underlying analysis because they form part of the landscape, but they are excluded when calculating the proportions of the agricultural categories.
This distinction is important. For example, a parish containing a large area of woodland or water should not consequently appear to have a lower proportion of arable agriculture when the purpose of the analysis is to compare its agricultural land uses.
How the agricultural proportions are calculated
The CROME data is overlaid with parish boundaries to identify the area occupied by each agricultural category within each parish.
Five categories are included in the calculation of agricultural land:
Agricultural Land = Arable + Grassland & Forage + Legumes & Protein Crops + Horticulture & Specialist Crops + Environmental & Rotational Land
Non-agricultural / Semi-natural Land is excluded.
The proportion for each agricultural category is then calculated as:
% of category = Area of category ÷ Total classified agricultural area × 100
For example:
| Category | Area | Proportion |
| Arable | 690 ha | 69% |
| Grassland & Forage | 160 ha | 16% |
| Legumes & Protein Crops | 50 ha | 5% |
| Horticulture & Specialist Crops | 30 ha | 3% |
| Environmental & Rotational Land | 70 ha | 7% |
| Total agricultural area | 1,000 ha | 100% |
In this example, arable crops account for 69% of the classified agricultural land and therefore form the dominant feature of the agricultural landscape.
Classifying the agricultural character of parishes
The percentage figures provide detailed information about the agricultural land uses found within each parish. To make the overall geographical pattern easier to understand and present on a map, each parish has also been assigned a broad agricultural character.
Analysis of the CROME data shows that Arable and Grassland & Forage are the two land-use categories that most clearly distinguish the overall agricultural character of parishes across the East Riding. Other categories, including Horticulture, Roots & Specialist Crops, Leguminous & Protein Crops and Environmental & Rotational Land, generally make up smaller proportions of the agricultural area.
The parish classification therefore focuses primarily on the balance between arable land and grassland. Three main agricultural character types are used:
- Predominantly Arable
- Predominantly Grassland
- Mixed Agricultural
These categories provide a simple summary of the agricultural landscape. They describe patterns of land use across a parish and should not be interpreted as classifications of individual farms or farm businesses.
Predominantly Arable
A parish is classified as Predominantly Arable where:
Arable crops account for 60% or more of the classified agricultural land.
This threshold identifies areas where cereals, oilseeds and other broad-acre crops form a clear majority of agricultural land.
The 60% threshold is intended to distinguish strongly arable landscapes from areas where arable crops may be the largest individual category but where grassland and other agricultural land uses also make substantial contributions.
For example, Market Weighton contains 68.2% Arable land and would therefore be classified as Predominantly Arable. Humbleton, where 93.4% of classified agricultural land is Arable, provides an example of a particularly strongly arable landscape.
Predominantly Grassland
A parish is classified as Predominantly Grassland where:
Grassland & Forage accounts for 50% or more of the classified agricultural land, provided that the parish has not already met the threshold for Predominantly Arable.
The 50% threshold reflects the point at which grassland and forage make up the majority of the agricultural area.
Examples include Cottingham, where Grassland & Forage accounts for 58.8% of classified agricultural land, Ellerton at 54.0%, and Bugthorpe at 50.4%. More strongly grassland-dominated examples include Cottingwith at 71.6% and Beverley at 94.7%.
This classification identifies a landscape in which grassland and forage are predominant. It does not indicate a specific form of livestock farming, as CROME records crops and land use rather than livestock or the activities of individual farm businesses.
Mixed Agricultural
A parish is classified as Mixed Agricultural where neither Arable nor Grassland & Forage reaches the threshold required to be considered predominant.
In many of these parishes, arable crops and grassland both make substantial contributions to the agricultural landscape. In others, Environmental & Rotational Land, Leguminous & Protein Crops or Horticulture, Roots & Specialist Crops contribute to a more varied pattern.
For example, Molescroft contains almost equal proportions of Arable at 49.5% and Grassland & Forage at 48.6%, making Mixed Agricultural a much more representative description than assigning the parish to either category individually.
Brantingham provides a different example of a mixed landscape, with 50.9% Arable, 24.2% Grassland & Forage, 10.9% Environmental & Rotational Land, 7.1% Horticulture, Roots & Specialist Crops and 7.0% Leguminous & Protein Crops. No single category meets the threshold for a predominant classification.
Using a Mixed Agricultural category therefore recognises that agricultural landscapes can contain an important combination of different land uses without one clearly dominating.
The term Mixed Agricultural refers to the overall pattern of land use within the parish. It does not necessarily mean that individual businesses are “mixed farms”. A parish may contain several farms specialising in different activities.
Summary of the classification
| Agricultural Character | Classification Rule |
| Predominantly | Arable accounts for 60% or more of classified agricultural land |
| Predominantly Grassland | Grassland & Forage accounts for 50% or more, where the Arable threshold has not already been met |
| Mixed Agricultural | Neither of the above thresholds is met |
These thresholds have been developed specifically to provide a clear and consistent summary of the agricultural land-use patterns identified in this analysis. They are analytical rules developed for this study and are not official CROME farming classifications.
Classification should be based on the unrounded percentage values calculated from the underlying land areas. Percentages may be rounded when displayed in tables, maps or other public information.
Recognising specialist cropping
Although Horticulture, Roots & Specialist Crops do not form a separate primary parish classification, they remain an important part of the agricultural landscape in some areas.
Across the parish data analysed, this category does not account for more than 20% of classified agricultural land in any parish. Some areas nevertheless have noticeably greater concentrations, including South Cliffe at 14.5%, Goole Fields at 14.1%, Market Weighton at 13.6% and Thornton at 13.1%.
For this reason, specialist cropping is treated as an additional characteristic rather than a separate agricultural type.
A parish is identified as having:
Notable Horticulture, Roots & Specialist Cropping where this category accounts for 10% or more of classified agricultural land.
This 10% threshold has been developed for this analysis to identify comparatively important concentrations of specialist crops within the East Riding. It is not an official CROME threshold.
For example, Market Weighton remains Predominantly Arable because Arable accounts for 68.2% of its agricultural land, but its 13.6% Horticulture, Roots & Specialist Crops can additionally be recognised as a notable specialist-cropping component.
Similarly, Thornton would be classified as Predominantly Grassland, with Grassland & Forage accounting for 50.2%, while its 13.1% specialist-cropping share can be recorded as an additional characteristic.
This two-level approach allows the analysis to communicate both the main agricultural character of a parish and important secondary features of its agricultural landscape without creating an unnecessarily complex map classification.
How to interpret the classification
The parish classification is designed to provide a straightforward overview of agricultural land-use patterns across the East Riding.
Predominantly Arable identifies areas where arable cropping clearly dominates. Predominantly Grassland identifies areas where grassland and forage make up the majority of agricultural land. Mixed Agricultural identifies landscapes where neither of these land uses is sufficiently dominant.
The detailed percentages for all five agricultural categories are retained alongside this simplified classification. They provide a fuller picture of each parish and allow differences between parishes within the same broad classification to be explored.
Important: The classification describes the agricultural character of land within each parish based on CROME data. It does not classify individual farms or farm businesses.
Limitations
As with any analysis based on mapped land-use data, there are several important limitations.
CROME identifies crops and land uses, not individual farms
The analysis shows what types of crops and land uses are mapped within each parish. It does not identify the business activities undertaken by individual farms.
The results should therefore not be interpreted as a farm-business classification.
Parish boundaries are not farm boundaries
A farm may manage land in more than one parish, while a single parish may contain land managed by several different farms.
The parish is simply being used as a consistent geographical unit for summarising the information.
The broader categories are analytical groupings
The six broad land-use categories have been developed specifically to simplify the detailed CROME classes for this analysis.
They should therefore be described as analytical groupings rather than official CROME farming classifications.
Agricultural land use changes over time
Many agricultural crops form part of a rotation, so the crop growing in an individual field can change from year to year.
The results should therefore be regarded as a picture of the agricultural landscape represented by CROME 2024 and 2025, rather than a permanent classification of an individual parish.
Conclusion
Combining detailed CROME land-use information into broader agricultural categories provides a clearer picture of how agricultural landscapes vary across the East Riding of Yorkshire.
The approach distinguishes between predominantly arable and predominantly grassland areas, highlights places with concentrations of horticultural and specialist crops, and identifies parishes that contain a more diverse mixture of agricultural land uses.
The resulting parish classification provides a straightforward way of communicating these geographical patterns to a wider audience, while the underlying percentages retain the detail needed for further analysis.
Most importantly, the classification should be understood as a description of the agricultural character of the land within each parish, rather than a classification of individual farms.
Last Updated on October 23, 2026