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2009 Abstract of Agriculture and Geographic Summary Sheets

17/03/2010

Scotland's Chief Statistician today published results from the 2009 Abstract of Agriculture and the 2009 Geographic Summary Sheets.

The main results from the June 2009 agricultural census were published on September 23rd 2009.

The Abstract presents data from 1982 onwards and details long-term trends in Scottish Agriculture, whilst the Geographic Summary Sheets provide a regional profile of Scottish Agriculture. The publications present the following details for June 2009:

• Cereals - the total area of cereals decreased in 2009 mainly due to reductions in wheat area in the South East region.
• Wheat - the area of wheat reduced by 21,300 ha (down 18.7 per cent) to 92,482 ha (the lowest reported area since 2003).
• Barley - the area of Winter barley reported also decreased (by 12,463 ha, down 21.6 per cent to 45,149 ha) to its lowest reported level since at least 1982. Conversely, the area of Spring barley increased in 2009 by 24,689 ha (up 9.4 per cent to 287,011 ha, the highest area reported since 1989).
• Cattle - the total number of cattle in the North East remained relatively stable in 2009, reporting only a slight decrease of 1,438 head (down 0.4 per cent to 360,076 head). Decreases of around 3 per cent were observed in the other three regions.
• Sheep - the decrease in the total number of sheep was driven mainly by the South East and South West regions which both reported decreases of around 73,000 sheep each (down 3 per cent).
• Sheep - lambs in the South East accounted for nearly half of the region's reduction in sheep numbers. In the South West, reductions in ewes and lambs were similar, accounting for around 40 per cent (each) of the reduction in the region's sheep numbers.
• Workforce - the casual and seasonal workforce increased in 2009 by 701 (up 11.8 per cent to 6,650 workers) due to increases observed in Tayside and Fife.
• Workforce - occupiers and spouses. In 2009 the number of occupiers and spouses increased by nearly 1,100 (up 2.8 per cent) to 40,443 mainly due to a rise in the part-time categories. The regional breakdown of this increase was; 32 per cent in the North West, followed by 26 per cent in the South West, leaving around 20 per cent (each) in the other two regions.

A summary table showing regional distributions from the 2009 June census is given below:

Revisions to previous June 2009 census statistics

Some very small revisions have been made to the June 2009 census statistics that were published on September 23, 2009 (as a result of finalising the 2009 June data). For example, the largest revision is a reduction of 0.7 per cent to our rough grazing figure (a decrease of 22,000 ha). All of the other revisions are less than 0.5 per cent and do not produce any notable changes to the existing statistics.

The Summary Sheets provide results for most of the census items collected in the June 2009 Agricultural Census. They present results by four broad agricultural regions (North West, North East, South East and South West) and 14 agricultural areas (these 14 areas are combinations of the unitary authorities that are more meaningful from an agriculture perspective).

To prevent disclosure of information about individual holdings, entries relating to fewer than five holdings, or those where two or fewer holdings account for 85 per cent or more of the total, have been replaced with an asterisk. Some of the suppressed cells in the tables may not, by themselves, be disclosive, but the information has been withheld to prevent disclosure by deduction.