A substantial part of the designated area that became Basildon had been farmland and though much of that was lost to development or open space there is still land being farmed at Langdon Hills and Vange.

One former farm in Dunton was Southfields, which in the 1960s was covered by the Ford Research and Engineering Centre. Bluehouse Community Centre in Laindon Link stands close to where the main Bluehouse Farmhouse once stood. A large area of Gloucester Park was once Brewitts Farm and another farm, Hunts, would disappear when Cranes Farm Road and the Industrial Estate No. 2 (Pipps Hill) was built in the 1960s.

Another farm, Fairhouse, is remembered in the name of the local school. Fryerns Farm, Nevendon, with 15 fields and a total acreage of just over 135, also gave its name to the first new secondary school to open as well as a large housing Ward and was possibly the first farm to be subject to a Development Corporation compulsory purchase order, which was issued on 19th March, 1951. Luncies Farm and Cranes Farm, though both long gone, are remembered with a road name.

In Pitsea the former Felmores Farm, which in Victorian times had over 60 acres, survived until the 1980s and gave its name to a neighbourhood (since renamed Northlands Park) and some of the former farm land is now Northlands Park.

Some former farms in Vange include Merricks or Vange Wharf Farm and Hill Farm.