Provisional Results - 2010 June Agricultural Census

29th September 2010

Scotland's Chief Statistician today published Provisional Results From The 2010 June Agricultural Census on land use, crop areas and livestock.

This is the first of a new Agriculture Statistics Publication Series, which provides commentary and graphics on the latest annual changes and trends over the past 10 years. It also contains background information on the June Agricultural Census.

Compared with June 2009, the main findings show that:

Cereal areas decreased by 23,418 hectares (5.2 per cent) to 425,365 hectares. This included an increase in wheat of 18,787 hectares (20.3 per cent) and a decrease in barley of 42,463 hectares (12.8 per cent)

The area of oilseed rape increased by 6,937 hectares (23.9 per cent) to 35,980 hectares
The total number of cattle increased by 14,137 (0.8 per cent) to 1.83 million. The number of cows in the beef herd increased by 6,612 (1.5 per cent) whilst the number of cows in the dairy herd decreased by 2,617 (1.4 per cent)

The total number of sheep fell by 171,850 (2.5 per cent) to 6.75 million. This included a fall in ewes used for breeding of 66,721 (2.5 per cent) and a decrease in lambs of 132,479 (3.9 per cent). Other sheep aged 1 year and over increased by 28,094 (3.9 per cent)

There was an increase in the total number of pigs of 13,536 (3.4 per cent) to 409,577. The pig breeding herd increased by 5,675 (17.1 per cent) and there was also an increase in the number of gilts over 50kg to be used for breeding of 895 (16.3 per cent). There was a smaller increase in the number of pigs for meat production of 6,726 (1.9 per cent)
The poultry flock fell by 471,016 (3.5 per cent) to 12.85 million. This comprised of an increase in the number of fowls for egg production of 656,089 (16.7 per cent) and a fall in the number of broiler and other birds for meat production of 1.08 million (13.3 per cent).
These statistics for 2010 are provisional, as the data processing and quality assurance of a small number of June Agricultural Census forms was outstanding by the cut off point for this publication. Final results, based on all returned forms will be published in December.

Labour results for 2010 are not yet available, as further analysis and quality assurance is being undertaken on the survey data, following changes to the labour questions on the 2010 June Census forms. Labour results for 2010 will be released with the publication of final results in December 2010.

An Excel spreadsheet containing results from the June Agricultural Census for the past 10 years, along with graphics used in the publication is available for download along with the publication.

Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.

For full details and data go to
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/09/30074936/0