To ask the Scottish Executive what the average farm income has been in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.
Average farm income informationis not available by local authority area.
The following table shows averageNet Farm Income estimates for Scotland for accounting periods 1999-2000 to 2004-05:
Period | Average Net Farm Income £ Per Farm |
1999-2000 | £2,880 |
2000-01 | £6,080 |
2001-02 | £10,520 |
2002-03 | £10,400 |
2003-04 | £19,870 |
2004-05 | £13,220 |
Source: Farm AccountsSurvey.
Notes:
1. Net Farm Income (NFI) representsthe return to the farmer and spouse for their manual and managerial labour and hasbeen calculated on a tenant-type farming basis. As the majority of farms in Scotland areowner-occupied, NFI estimates ought to be treated with some caution as they do notrepresent all the income of owner-occupied farms.
2. NFI results, which are generatedfrom the Farm Accounts Survey, are representative of eight main farm types in Scotland. Theydo not include incomes from farm types such as pigs, poultry or horticulture.
3. NFI results are only representativeof farms in Scotland above an economic size threshold of 0.5 standard labourrequirements.
4. Methodological improvementswere introduced to NFI estimates in 2002-03, so there may be a slight break in theNFI series in this period.
There are two main sources ofinformation on farm incomes :
The Farm Accounts Survey providesresults on average farm incomes at the national level, however the sample size of460 farms is insufficient to provide reliable or representative results at the localauthority level.
The Total Income From Farming(TIFF) measure is compiled at a national level using a range of national data sources,as such TIFF estimates are not produced at a local authority level.