Agricultural Household Survey 2025 Report

1. Background and methodology

1.1 Introduction

This report provides the results of a survey of agricultural households in 2025, carried out by Research Resource on behalf of the Rural & Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) of the Scottish Government.

1.2 Background and objectives

The Scottish Government is establishing a robust and coherent framework to underpin Scotland’s future agriculture support from 2025 onwards.

Legislative requirements to monitor and evaluate agricultural reform were established under the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024. Work on establishing a monitoring framework for the Rural Support Plan (RSP) has identified several areas where data is incomplete or not available, particularly around equalities, skills, and wellbeing in the agricultural population. Without this data, effective monitoring and evaluation for agricultural schemes and interventions cannot be undertaken.

With a view to filling these data gaps, the Scottish Government commissioned a survey of agricultural households in Scotland to create a comprehensive and robust data set to allow a baseline picture of agricultural households to be created against which change can be measured.

The overarching objective of the Agricultural Household Survey (AHS) was to gather data on all these factors to provide a more comprehensive picture of the challenges and opportunities within farming and crofting communities. It also aimed to inform strategies that enhance and support the priorities of the RSP moving forward, giving us a sense of the impact and effectiveness of the RSP on the diversity, wellbeing and just transition of Scotland’s farmers and crofters.

The survey collected data on equalities characteristics, demographics, household composition, economic activity, wellbeing and skills needs. In addition, research questions also focused on areas such as learning and development, digital access and allowed analysis to be undertaken for households with children to identify any issues around child poverty.

1.3 Research method

The research questions and survey design were developed in discussion with stakeholders through the Research Advisory Group (RAG). Cognitive testing of the questions was carried out with 6 individuals, a mix of crofters and farmers. The purpose of this was to test the questionnaire to investigate the way respondents understood, processed and responded to questions and to explore whether the questions, response options and any instructions were interpreted as intended. Participants were asked to complete the survey, and this was followed up with a detailed discussion in order to understand their perceptions of the questionnaire, and to identify any potential challenges they may face in completing it. The findings from this exercise were then fed back to the Project Manager along with recommendations on how the survey could be adjusted to improve the quality of data or response rates.

A copy of the final questionnaire is provided in Annex 1. Respondents were assured that all their answers would be completely confidential and anonymous and that it would not be possible to identify any individual or household in the final report. A privacy notice accompanied the survey.

The database used for the research was similar to that of the contacts database that is used for the Scottish Government’s June Agricultural Census (JAC). The database was cleaned in order that only one Business Reference Number (BRN) was listed for each address leaving a total of 47,360 addresses. From this, a list of 27,540 email addresses was extracted. An initial email invitation to complete the survey was sent to all contacts for whom an email address was held. This was sent on 4th July 2025 with two further reminders sent to non-respondents.

On 25th July 2025, a postal survey was sent to a representative sample of 10,000 households for whom no email contact details were held. Respondents were sent a letter outlining the background and purpose of the survey, including frequently asked questions, along with a self-completion questionnaire. The front page of the questionnaire included a link to an online version which could be completed in place of the postal survey if desired. For paper based self-completion surveys, a freepost return envelope was provided. Between 8th and 26th September 2025, 245 participants who did not respond to either the email or postal survey were interviewed by telephone. This targeted underrepresented groups from the email and postal surveys.

1.4 Sample size and response profile

A total of 4,284 responses were received to the Agricultural Household Survey with a majority being completed via email (78%, 3,324 responses). A further 14% (610 responses) were returned by post, 2% (105 responses) were submitted online and 6% were completed by telephone (245 responses).

Annex 2 contains more detail on the sampling process and the level of confidence on different estimates and for subgroup analysis.

The following tables show the number of responses by local authority and farm type identified via the BRN within the Scottish government list of farms and crofts in Scotland. The response profile was compared to the overall agricultural population. This showed that the response population was broadly representative of the agricultural population profile at local authority level. Local authorities noted as ‘c’ are where there are less than five farms or crofts within the Scottish Government list of farms and crofts in Scotland.

A number of entries in the JAC had the local authority area down as “unclassified”. These have been removed from the table above.

Table 1.2 shows that there is good representation across all farm and croft types with some overrepresentation amongst Less Favoured Area (LFA) cattle and sheep and underrepresentation with regard to general cropping - forage. Farms/crofts coded as “unclassified” have been excluded from this analysis.

The following tables have been pulled into the survey data file via postcode for the specific site that was sampled. The Urban Rural classification and Scottish island and mainland Scotland data was sourced from the 2025 version of the Scottish Statistics Postcode Lookup and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) was pulled in from the SIMD 2020 data zone lookup. As can be seen in Table 1.3, Table 1.4 and Table 1.5 the profile achieved is broadly in line with the population by SIMD, urban rural classification and by Scottish island compared to mainland Scotland locations.

1.5 Interpreting results

Respondents in the survey are representative of registered farmers and crofters. When reporting the data in this document, in general, percentages in tables have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Columns may not add to 100% because of rounding or where multiple responses to a question are possible.

All tables have a descriptive and numerical base, showing the respondent population or population subgroup examined in it. Due to the self-completion nature of the survey, the base (number of respondents) for each question varies. Where respondents have left a question blank, these have been excluded from the base.