Final Results: 2011 June Agricultural Census

Scotland's Chief Statistician has published final results from the 2011 June Agricultural Census on land use, crop areas, livestock and labour.

This publication contains Final Results from the 2011 June Agricultural Census and provides commentary and graphics on the latest annual changes and trends over the past 10 years.

The publication also contains background information on the June Agricultural Census. Compared with June 2010, these results show that:

• Cereal areas increased by 20,826 hectares (4.9 per cent) to 447,104 hectares. This included an increase in wheat of 3,994 hectares (3.6 per cent) and an increase in barley of 18,126 hectares (6.2 per cent).

• The area of oilseed rape increased by 2,397 hectares (6.7 per cent) to 38,388 hectares.

• The total number of cattle decreased by 21,150 (1.2 per cent) to 1.80 million. The number of cows in the beef herd increased by 2,410 (0.5 per cent) while the number of cows in the dairy herd decreased by 2,306 (1.2 per cent).

The total number of sheep rose by 46,343 (0.7 per cent) to 6.80 million. This included a decrease in ewes used for breeding of 3,475 (0.1 per cent) and an increase in lambs of 56,742 (1.7 per cent). Other sheep aged 1 year and over decreased by 7,301 (1.0 per cent).

There was a decrease in the total number of pigs of 20,707 (5.0 per cent) to 389,995. The pig breeding herd decreased by 2,588 (6.6 per cent) and there was also an decrease in the number of gilts over 50kg to be used for breeding of 1,252 (19.5 per cent). There was a decrease in the number of pigs for meat production of 17,050 (4.7 per cent).

The poultry flock decreased by 40,859 (0.3 per cent) to 14.53 million. This resulted from an increase in the number of fowls for egg production of 464,799 (10.2 per cent) being offset by a decrease in the number of broilers and other birds for meat production of 677,905 (7.7 per cent).

The number of people working in agriculture was 67,806, broadly level with numbers in 2010. An increase in casual and seasonal staff was seen, up 1,047 (17.8 per cent) to 6,945.

There were reductions observed in the number of regular full-time staff (down 767 or 5.4 per cent) and in working occupiers (down 329 or 1.2 per cent), and in working spouses (down 64 or 0.5 per cent).

An Excel workbook containing results and charts from 2001 to 2011 is available for download along with the publication.

Minor revisions have been made to some of the 2009 and 2010 results presented in the publication. Further details of these changes can be found in section 4.9. of the publication.

Also published this week is an Excel workbook containing trends from the June Census from 1982 onwards, known as the "Abstract of Scottish Agricultural Statistics".

Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.

More news for Scottish farmers.