Shocking new figures reveal that one in nine people across Oxfordshire are living in poverty that's 67,000 in all.

Now the worst-hit pockets have been identified to help agencies target their help where it is most needed.

Another report shows the plight of those who make their living from the land. Many farmers have seen their income drop by 90 per cent over the past five years. Three ominous words spell out the plight of many of Oxfordshire farmers: "Significantly declining incomes."

This is how the National Farmers' Union describes a situation which has seen some farming families reduced to struggling to get by on just 8,000 a year or 160 a week.

Yet for some, the picture is even bleaker. For former Oxfordshire pig farmer Neil Datson, the bottom hasn't so much gone out of the market as the market itself has ceased to exist.

The Datson family are tenant famers and have worked their 300 acres of land at Spelsbury in west Oxfordshire for a quarter of a century. "We were pig farmers, but I had to shut that down," says Neil. "We've changed to cattle and corn because the income from pigs had just disappeared, gone. We've lost everything and more besides."

In the best years he was among the top earners and close to the nationally quoted ceiling of 80,000. He now admits that figure is less than 8,000.

The reasons for the plight of farmers like Neil include the strong pound and the weak Euro and a conviction that the current Government just doesn't care about them.

He adds: "Of course, being tenant farmers means that we're dependent on the landlord and that we can't sell anything. "The strength of sterling and a deeply unsympathetic political culture in this country are root causes of the financial situation. I have no doubt whatsoever that the Government think that the sooner we're all gone, the happier they'll be.

"The straws are in the wind they basically want rid of us for all sorts of reasons. The BSE thing was such an embarrassment to them, and pig production has been paralysed because of BSE rules. "The rules bear down on you all the time. Some might say 'tough', but my solution would be to get out of the EU because our problem as farmers in the UK is that the Government says the EU won't allow this or won't allow that.

"It's all very well saying we should stand on our own two feet, but how can you when the competition is being propped up?"

In the good years when Neil Datson was still pig farming, he would rise in all weathers at six in the morning and not finish work until eight at night but it was a life he loved. Now, his life has changed irrevocably. Ask him what he plans to do and he grimaces. "The future? I'll have to make a living outside farming," he replies flatly.

"Farming really has become more of a hobby to me now. I do it cheaply, rather than productively. I also write for a living, but as far as farming is concerned, I feel a sort of lethargy.

"The way things are now, you might as well not work." As a spokesman for the NFU explains: "The problem is declining incomes in farming and a lot of farmers have had to make management decisions as finances have got tighter. You don't wait until you're driven into the ground before you make these decisions."

But as far as Neil Datson is concerned, he's not so much been driven into the ground as driven to the point of despair.