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Publication - Statistics

Results from the Scottish Agricultural Census: June 2023

Published
31 October 2023
From
Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands
Directorate
Environment and Forestry Directorate, +1 more … Agriculture and Rural Economy Directorate
Part of
Farming and rural

Final results from the 2023 June Agricultural Census on land use, crop areas, livestock and the number of people working on agricultural holdings. Estimates for 2022 are published in the supporting documents.

This document is part of a collection

Supporting documents

Decrease in planted potato area compared with five year average

The total area of planted potatoes was 26,600 hectares in 2023. This represents a decline of six per cent, compared with the five year average, which was 28,400 hectares. This decline was due to decreases seen for both seed (a fall of five percent) and ware potatoes (a decrease of seven per cent). Seed potato area in 2023 was 11,700 hectares and ware potato area was 14,900 hectares.

Other parts of the United Kingdom also saw declines. Defra reported a 12 per cent decline in the area of potatoes planted in England in 2023 (Defra report on agricultural land use in England at 1 June 2023).

Information on potato planting area in this section has a gap in 2022 due to the survey being paused in 2022.

Figure 6: Area of total, ware and seed potatoes from 2013 to 2023 

Line chart of potato area between 2013 to 2023. Three lines show the trends over this time for total, ware and seed potatoes. All lines see a decline in 2015 which then rises until 2017, drops the following year and declines between 2021 to 2023 (no data available for 2022). The lines in 2013 present total potatoes with 29,100 hectares, ware with 16,500 hectares and seed with 12,600 hectares. The end of the lines in 2023 show total potatoes with 26,600 hectares, ware with 14,900 hectares and seed with 11,700 hectares.

Contact

Email: agric.stats@gov.scot

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