Pesticide Usage in Scotland: Outdoor Vegetable Crops 2017

Structure of report and how to use these statistics

This report is intended to provide data in a useful format to a wide variety of data users. The general trends section provides commentary on recent changes in survey data and longer term trends. The 2017 pesticide usage section summarises usage on all outdoor vegetable crops in 2017. Appendix 1 presents all estimated pesticide usage in three formats, area and weight of formulations by crop and area and weight of active substances grouped by their mode of action. The area and weight of active substances by crop data, which were previously published in this report, are now published as supplementary data in Excel format. These different measures are provided to satisfy the needs of different data users (see Appendix 3 for examples). Appendix 2 summarises survey statistics including census and holding information, raising factors and survey response rates. Appendix 3 defines many of the terms used throughout the report. Appendix 4 describes the methods used during sampling, data collection and analysis as well as measures undertaken to avoid bias and reduce uncertainty. Any changes in method from previous survey years are also explained.

It is important to note that the figures presented in this report are produced from surveying a sample of holdings rather than a census of all the holdings in Scotland. Therefore the figures are estimates of the total pesticide use for Scotland and should not be interpreted as exact. To give an indication of the precision of estimates, the report includes relative standard errors. A full explanation of standard errors can be found in Appendix 5.