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Agricultural survey December 2011
08/03/2012
Scotland’s Chief Statistician today published Results from the 2011 December Agricultural Survey, covering winter sown crops, hay and silage production, livestock and machinery.
This Statistical Publication provides commentary and graphics on the latest annual changes and trends over the past 10 years. The trend analysis for crops and livestock have been placed in the context of more comprehensive results from the June Agricultural Census. A comparison of livestock population profiles between June and December has also been included.
The results of the December Survey are representative of main agricultural holdings only and do not cover minor agricultural holdings. The implications of this are covered in the commentary of this publication.
Key trends between 2010 and 2011 December Survey results show:
- A decrease in all winter crop areas for wheat (down 15,557 hectares or 13.6 per cent) to 98,626 hectares, for oilseed rape (down 1,271 hectares or 3.4 per cent) to 35,656 hectares, for oats (down 1,167 hectares or 15.5 per cent) to 6,380 hectares and for barley (down 1,553 hectares or 3.1 per cent) to 48,829 hectares. These results should be considered in context of spring crop areas which are reported on the June Agricultural Census
- Annual production of grass silage/haylage increased by 33,562 tonnes (0.5 per cent) to 6.63 million tonnes. By contrast there was a decrease in the production of hay of 16,958 tonnes (6.1 per cent) to 259,941 tonnes and a decrease in arable silage production of 27,403 tonnes (8.0 per cent) to 316,520 tonnes
- Total cattle decreased by 32,362 (1.8 per cent) to 1.73 million, a higher decrease than the 1.2 per cent decline reported in the 2011 June Census
- A decrease in the beef herd of 6,809 (1.5 per cent) to 460,107, which is in contrast to the increase of 0.5 per cent reported in the 2011 June Census. There was a decrease in the dairy herd of 2,979 (1.6 per cent) to 179,623, similar to the 1.2 per cent decrease reported in the 2011 June Census
- The number of breeding sheep decreased by 53,730 (2.0 per cent) to 2.70 million, a higher decrease than the 0.1 per cent reported in the 2011 June Census results. The number of lambs decreased by 62,686 (3.8 per cent) to 1.57 million, in contrast to the 1.7 per cent increase in lambs seen in the 2011 June Census results
- The trends seen for the number of lambs is reflected in the results for total sheep with a decrease of 119,586 (2.6 per cent) to 4.47 million seen for the December survey and a slight increase 0.7 per cent for the June Survey
- The number of pigs decreased by 42,150 (10.3 per cent) down to 368,068, larger than the 5.0 per cent decrease reported in the 2011 June Census
- The number of poultry decreased by 0.71 million (4.8 per cent) down to 13.96 million birds, higher than the to the 0.3 per cent decrease reported in the 2011 June Census
- A decrease in the number of tractors of 1,966 (4.7 per cent) to 40,224
An Excel workbook containing results and charts from 2001 to 2011 is available for download along with the publication.
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