Census confirms slump in Scots barley area

Final results from the Scottish Government’s 2010 agricultural census, published today (16 December), confirm the country’s barley area slumped this year, while there was a slight recovery in cattle numbers.

The final figures were relatively unchanged from provisional results released in September, and put the total cereal area down by 22,393ha (5%) on 2009, at 426,390ha, largely due to a massive 41,786ha decrease in the amount of barley grown. This was partially offset by an increase in the area of wheat and oilseed rape.

The total number of cattle increased slightly to 1.83m, largely due to the first rise in beef numbers for five years, while the sheep flock declined 2.5% to 6.75m. The pig herd grew by just over 3% to 409,287 and the total poultry flock increased by 1.27m (9.6%) to 14.6m.