Pesticide Usage in Scotland: Rodenticides on Grassland and Fodder Farms 2021

Introduction

Whilst there is no statutory requirement to survey rodenticide usage, the Scottish Government (SG) conducts periodic post-approval surveillance of use in arable, grass and fodder and local authority sectors. This monitoring is conducted by the Pesticide Survey Unit at SASA, a division of the Scottish Government's Agriculture and Rural Economy Directorate.

As part of this programme, a survey of rodenticide use on farms growing grassland and fodder crops was carried out in 2021. This is the 7^th survey in this series. The previous surveys were conducted in 1993, 1997, 2002, 2005, 2013 and 2017. The first four surveys (1993 to 2005) focussed on rodenticide use on farms growing fodder crops (ca. 2,000 holdings in Scotland). From 2013 onwards the surveys were extended to include data from a supplementary sample of grassland farms to allow estimation of rodenticide use on all Scottish farms growing grass and stock feeding crops (ca. 42,000 holdings).

The Scottish Pesticide Usage reports have been designated as Official Statistics since August 2012 and as National Statistics since October 2014. The interim Chief Statistician (Ally McAlpine) acts as the statistics Head of Profession for the Scottish Government and has overall responsibility for the quality, format, content and timing of all Scottish Government national statistics publications, including the pesticide usage reports. As well as working closely with Scottish Government statisticians, SASA receive survey specific statistical support from Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS).

All reports are produced according to a published timetable. For further information in relation to Pesticide Survey Unit publications and their compliance with the code of practice please refer to the pesticide usage survey section of the SASA website The website also contains other useful documentation such as SASA privacy policies and SASA revision policies, a pesticide usage report feedback survey and detailed background information on the survey methodology used and uses of the PSU pesticide usage dataset.

Additional information regarding rodenticide use can be supplied by the Pesticide Survey unit. Please email psu@sasa.gov.scot or visit the SASA survey unit webpage.

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 results and comparison section presents the results from this survey in comparison with results from the previous surveys in 2013⁽¹⁾ and 2017⁽²⁾.

Appendix 1 contains data, including estimates of rodenticide use, responses to questions about compliance with best practice and rodenticide stewardship and operational information about sample farms. Appendix 2 summarises survey statistics including census and holding information, raising factors, survey response rates and outlines the estimated financial burden to survey respondents. Appendix 3 defines 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. Changes in method or data collection from the previous survey years are also outlined in Appendix 4.

It is important to note that the figures presented in this report are produced by surveying a sample of holdings rather than a census of all the holdings in Scotland. Therefore, the figures are estimates of total rodenticide use on Scottish grassland and fodder farms and should not be interpreted as exact.