Data and Methodology

Data

• Data accompanying the report can be downloaded from the report tables.
• To request further data underlying the report and for previous years of data please contact agric.stats@gov.scot.

How the data is collected

• The data was collected through the June Agricultural Census in June 2023. The June Agricultural Census 2023 received 18,269 responses from agricultural holdings. Around 51% (9,490) of these holdings provided information on at least one question in the agricultural production methods and nutrient application module, further details on response rates for each question are included in the detailed spreadsheet tables.

Quality assurance

• Reponses to individual questions were compared to identify outliers. Areas and quantities were compared to results collected historically through the Farm Structure Survey and shared with experts for quality assurance purposes.
• Some returns on the quantity of nitrogen applied to mixed grass-legume swards were suspected of being outliers. Tables 7 and 8 presents data capped for the quantity of nitrogen deemed to be within a normal range (as advised after consulting with relevant experts).  

Methodology

• The results from this report are based on responses alone. No imputation or correction for missing data was applied (beyond the capping of nitrogen described above).
• While results should not be directly compared with the published reports from the Farm Structure Survey for 2016 and 2010, they are a useful indication of current farming practice on nutrient management and fertiliser, manure and slurry use.
• For the underlying data from the historic Farm Structure Surveys and this report please contact agric.stats@gov.scot.

Open code

• Code relating to the production of our statistics can viewed and downloaded from the ScotGovAnalysis Github Repository.