The East of England's huge role in feeding the nation is revealed in the latest set of government figures for 2022.

Total income from farming in the region in 2022 was £1.094bn - showing a whopping 82% rise since 2018, according to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) statistics.

In 2022, the largest contributors to East farms' output value of £4.5bn were wheat at £1bn and poultry meat at £658m - which together accounted for 37% of the total output.

The average farm size in 2022 was 123 hectares - the second largest average farm size of all the English regions and much larger than the English average of 87ha.

Most farms operated as cereal producers - making up 54% of the region's total farmed area.

But while pigs took up just 1.4% of the region's farmed area, they accounted for a whopping 29% of the total English pig population.

Across all farm types, the average farm business income rose by 57% between 2020/21 and 2021/22 to stand at £114,400 per farm.

The region - which includes East Anglia (Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire), Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire - encompasses a total of nearly 1.4 million hectares of farmed land.

The region is sizeable cereals and vegetable producer, with 33% of England's potato growing land, 62% of its sugar beet area, 27% of its field vegetable land, 22% of its oilseed rape area, 25% of all England's barley fields, and 28% of its wheat area.

Its contribution to livestock rearing is also significant with 45% of England's turkeys - or 1.6m head - produced in the East. It also produces 24% of its table chickens - or 23m head - and 29% of its pigs - or nearly 1.8m.

The region contains many of England's largest farms of