SCOTLAND'S farm workforce is now the smallest on record, with the latest official figures putting it at 63,400 souls, down by 1,900 since 2015.
The results of the June 2016 Agricultural Census, released this week by Scotland's chief statistician, also revealed a reduction in the area of cereals cropped, a static cattle sector, and small increases in potatoes, sheep, pigs and poultry.
Alongside that 1900 fall in the domestic agricultural workforce, the number of migrant working-days was also down, dropping seven per cent to 430,000. The total number of migrant workers, however, was not collected by the census.
About 80 per cent of the total area of Scotland is agricultural land, spread across 51,900 agricultural holdings. An estimated 6587 of these holdings had tenancy arrangements, down by 22 on last year. This put the total area of land rented at 23 per cent, the lowest on record.
Alongside this, there was a fall in 91 Act secure tenanted land of about 46,600 hectares and an equivalent increase in Short Duration Limited Tenancy land.
Overall, there was 12,400 hectares less ground devoted to cereals in the census year, equivalent to a drop of three per cent, giving the lowest area of cereals reported since 2010. Barley in particular was down by 20,700 hectares (seven per cent), while the areas of wheat remained similar to last year, and oats increased by 5,600 hectares.
Fallow land increased markedly for the second consecutive year, this time up 10,000 hectares to 43,000 hectares.
Potatoes saw a small increase, of 1,800 hectares (seven per cent) to 27,500 hectares, bouncing back from last year’s poor figures. However, that area of spuds is still the second lowest since 1994.
The area of oilseed and of crops for stock-feed decreased again (by 15 per cent and eight per cent respectively), but there were increases in the area of vegetables for human consumption (nine per cent), and of fruit (three per cent). Looking at the fruit sector, the figures showed that the area growing strawberries rose by 54 hectares to 990 hectares (a six per cent increase), but raspberries decreased by 24 hectares (seven per cent) to 330 hectares.
Cattle numbers remained fairly constant at 1.8 million, but are still the third lowest recorded since the 1950s. There was very little change in either dairy or beef numbers. Sheep numbers increased for the third consecutive year, up 125,000 (two per cent) to 6.8 million, although that is still lower than in 2009.
Pig numbers were up 12,500 (four per cent) to 330,000, the third consecutive rise. Poultry numbers increased eight per cent, bouncing back after last year’s 11 per cent fall. The figure of 14.1 million, similar to the longer-term average, included 6.5 million broilers (up 15 per cent) and 6.3 million layers (up four per cent).
The full statistical publications can be accessed at www.gov.scot/stats/bulletins/01250
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here