Agent tells of 43% more farmland put on market

Largest volume of acreage on offer for 10 years with further sales likely, says expert

Industry uncertainty and an ageing farming population have been cited as the main reasons more Scottish farmland is coming to the market in 2018 than in the previous 10 years.

Land agents Strutt & Parker told a farmers’ meeting in Fife that 118 farms comprising 46,278 acres had so far come to the market in 2018, up 43% from 32,400 acres in 2017 but more in line with the 41,100 acres on sale in 2016.

The average size of farm for sale is 392 acres and key investors are English rollover buyers and forestry investors .

The firm’s farm sales agent, Will Dalrymple told farmers that prime arable land was in very short supply, parti- cularly in Fife, Angus and East Lothian.

Prices for arable farms vary from £3,000/acre in Aberdeenshire to £14,000 in East Lothian; grass leys range from £2,000/acre in Caithness to £3,500/acre in Perthshire; rough grazing ranges from £1,000/acre in Ayrshire to £2,000/acre in Stirlingshire and hill ground rises from £200 in Invernessshire to £1,650 in Perthshire.

Mr Dalrymple said he expected to see more farms and land up for sale, values in marginal areas cut, more disparity in regional values and ongoing buoyancy of prime arable land in the eastern arable counties.

Also, he expects continued demand from the forestry sector, with a significant difference in the value of land offering potential for forestry planting compared to land that doesn’t.

Land at East Bowhouse, Leslie, Fife, which has just come on the market.