Facts and figures on farming at your fingertips with new leaflet

Ever wondered about the size of Scotland’s breeding sheep flock? Or how much milk is produced in this country? Or how the number of farmers growing malting barley has changed over the past ten years? (Answers at the end.)

These and many other key agricultural statistics can be found in the handy pocket-sized Facts and Figures card for the agriculture sector which was published yesterday by the Scottish Government.

The 12-page leaflet brings together a wide range of information from the government’s agriculture analysts, and serves as a useful reference for information on Scottish agriculture.

Based on the results of the two annual farming surveys, and information supplied in the Single Application Forms, it will be distributed free of charge at the Scottish Government’s pavilion at next week’s Royal Highland Show.

A spreadsheet containing a large number of tables of data, previously published in the annual Economic Report on Scottish Agriculture was also made available online yesterday. The Office of National Statistics said that a hard copy of the report has now moved to being produced every five years, but all the data are still being made available on the government’s website each year. Answer: 2.6 million breeding ewes in 2017 (comparesd with 433,000 suckler cows in the same year). 1,529 million litres of milk were produced by the dairy industry in 2017, 200 million litres up on 2007. And 7,547 growers were planting spring barley crops– almost 1,000 down on the ten-year previous figure.