Farm Business Survey: Farm level emissions and nitrogen usage

Farm level emissions and nitrogen usage data from the Scottish Farm Business Survey.

The Scottish Farm Business Survey is an annual survey of around 400 commercial-sized farms. Farms which are part-time, or with economic activity below approximately £20,000 are not included. Farms that do not receive support, such as pigs, poultry and horticulture, are not included in the survey.

Data from the June Agricultural Census are used to weight the farm business income estimates. The FBS is representative of around 11,000 farms in Scotland, which is around 21% of all farms included in the June Agricultural Census. These farms cover 64% of Scotland's agricultural land, employ 46% of those employed in Scottish farming, and produce 95% of standard output from the farming sectors that are included in the FBS.

On-farm greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are estimated using a life cycle assessment (LCA) based carbon calculator (Agrecalc). They do not account for any sequestration by woodland areas or soil. Nitrogen estimates are based on standard estimates of nitrogen content in all farm inputs and outputs where possible. Nitrogen estimates are not made for organic farms, which means a small proportion of the sample are excluded.

The dataset contains the following variables:

Average farm absolute GHG emissions per hectare
Average farm emission intensity from GHG
Average farm nitrogen balance
Average farm nitrogen use efficiency

The median, lower quartile and upper quartile values for each variable are available for each of the years 2019/20 to 2021/22, and for the following farm types:

Cereal
General Cropping
Dairy
Less favoured area (LFA) Livestock
Mixed
All Types