High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: January, 2012
Farm Business Income
Estimates of Farm Business Income (FBI) come from the Farm Accounts Survey (FAS) for Scotland, which is based on a sample of 494 farms in 2010/11 and 491 farms in 2009/10. The survey only includes farms above a certain size (over and above 0.5 Standard Labour Requirements) and covers most main farm types in Scotland, excluding horticulture, specialist pig and specialist poultry producers.
The FBI measure is closely aligned to Total Income From Farming (TIFF) and provides a sectoral breakdown of incomes by 8 different farm types. The FBI results are based on accounting periods and lag behind TIFF. FBI results for 2010/11 are mostly closely related to 2010 TIFF results.
Average Farm Business Income (FBI) in 2010/11 was £45,100, a increase of £10,900 (32 per cent) from 2009/10. Trends in FBI between 2009/10 and 2010/11 are most closely related to trends in TIFF between 2009 and 2010, which increased by 25 per cent.
There were increases in FBI between 2009/10 and 2010/11 for the following farm types; Dairy (up £14,779), Lowland Cattle and Sheep (up £2,200), Mixed (up £8,134), Cereals (up £34,571) and General Cropping (up £41,246); large increases in the FBI of both Cereal and General Cropping farms follow a steep fall in 2009/10 largely due to decreased value of cereal and potato outputs and increased fertiliser costs. FBI decreased for Specialist Beef LFA (down £5,357) and Cattle and Sheep LFA (down £1,602) and remained unchanged for Specialist Sheep (LFA).
The increase in the value of cereals and other crops, which largely recovered to previous levels from a decline in 2009, outstripped a modest rise in input costs and resulted in a relatively large increase in the FBI of arable farm types such as Cereals and General Cropping in 2010/11.
A rise in the output value of milk was the main contributor to the increase in the FBI of Dairy farms in 2010/11.
Despite higher overall output values of cattle and sheep, reductions in both grants and subsidies and financial gains from diversified activities resulted in a decrease of FBI in the Cattle and Sheep (LFA) farm type between 2009/10 and 2010/11.
Greater increases in input costs of feed, machinery and land and buildings, than in output values of cattle, as well as crops, caused an overall reduction in the FBI Specialist Beef (LFA) farms in 2010/11. However for Lowland Cattle and Sheep farms the increased value of cattle and sheep was enough to offset the increased costs of feed, other livestock expenses and machinery, resulting in a rise in FBI.
Source: Farm Accounts Survey, Scottish Government Rural and Environment Research and Analysis Directorate
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