Energy and other inputs as constraints on food production.

The production and subsequent processing, packaging and distribution of food cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of the country's economy. The Input-Output Tables for the United Kingdom (Central Statistical Office, 1968) illustrate the complex interdependencies of all its industries and may indeed be used to quantify the importance of other industrial inputs in determining the output of those concerned in food production. This has been done in Table I. From the inverse of the commodityxcommodity matrix the contributions to the final output of farming and the food industries which derive from value added in these industries themselves and from other sectors of the economy have been calculated. The basic data are those in the most recent Input-Output Tables (Department of Industry, 1976).