Scottish farm business income: annual estimates 2013-2014

Methodology Note

Estimates of average farm income in Scotland come from the Farm Accounts Survey (FAS) for Scotland, which is based on a sample of 500 farms. The FAS sample is stratified by farm type, and size. The survey does not currently include farms predominantly engaged in horticulture, poultry, egg production or pig production. The coverage of the survey is restricted to those farms which have considerable economic activity (at least 25,000 Euros of output) and are not considered as spare-time farms (have a Standard Labour Requirement (SLR) of more than 0.5).

Farm typology has been amended since 2014 and farms are now classified by standard outputs (SOs) rather than standard gross margins (SGMs). More information on this typology is available in the Economic Report on Scottish Agriculture.

Time series in this report are presented in 2013-14 prices, unless stated otherwise. In line with methodologies throughout the UK and standard methodologies within the EC this is now done using the Office for National Statistics (ONS) GDP deflator (implicit price deflator for gross domestic product).

More details on the methodology and quality of the Farm Accounts Survey and results are available online in the methodology and quality note. More detailed data tables are also available online, from the Agriculture Statistics website.