Agricultural holdings data for Sanday, Orkney: EIR release

Information requested

I am seeking non-personal, anonymised agricultural holdings data for Sanday, Orkney, specifically:

1. Number of agricultural holdings

Please provide the total number of registered agricultural holdings on Sanday that have:

• a CPH (County Parish Holding) number, and/or
• are registered as an agricultural business for the purposes of
  • IACS (Integrated Administration and Control System)
  • SAF (Single Application Form)Please provide data for the most recent year available.

Please provide data for the most recent year available.

2. Agricultural land area

For the same holdings, please provide:

• Total agricultural area (hectares), broken down by:
  • Permanent grass
  • Temporary grass
  • Rough grazing
  • Arable
  • Other land categories used in the IACS/SAF return

Anonymised aggregated figures only — not farm-level data.

3. Optional — livestock totals (aggregated)

If held and releasable under FOISA, please provide total livestock numbers for Sanday (latest year):

• Cattle
• Sheep
• Pigs
• Other livestock categories

Again, aggregate totals only.

Format

Please supply all information in digital format, preferably CSV, Excel, or PDF.

Personal data

For clarity, I am not requesting any personal data or any information that would identify individual farmers, crofters, landowners, or businesses.

All requested data may be provided in fully anonymised, aggregated form.

This information will support community energy and resilience planning in the Sanday islands, including assessing agricultural implications for local retrofit and carbon-reduction projects. It will not be used for commercial marketing.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

1. Number of agricultural holdings for the most recent year available (2025):

There are 96 registered agricultural holdings on Sanday with a County Parish Holding (CPH) number.

Out of this population, 28 of the registered agricultural holdings submitted a Single Application Form (SAF) in 2025 for the purposes of IACS/SAF.

2. Agricultural land area (aggregated)

The total aggregated agricultural land area declared on the registered agricultural holdings on Sanday in 2025 is set out below:

All figures are provided in hectares and represent anonymised, aggregated data only.

Agricultural Land Cover	Claimed Area
Permanent grass	2922.26 ha
Temporary grass	417.41 ha
Rough grazing	358.64 ha
Arable cropping	223.22 ha
Other declared land	2.94 ha

Please note that the agricultural land area is based on declarations made within SAF 2025 applications and does not include unregistered, unutilised or unclaimed land.

3. Livestock totals (aggregated)

The total aggregated livestock numbers declared on the registered agricultural holdings with SAF applications for Sanday in 2025 is set out below:

Livestock Type	Aggregated Livestock Number
Cattle (all ages)	3625
Sheep (all ages)	2737
Pigs	16
Other Livestock
Poultry	281
Horses	14

Please note that livestock figures are based on numbers present at 01/03/2025 and will not include livestock held on holdings that did not submit a SAF application in the relevant year.

4. Format

This information is provided in aggregated form only and does not identify any individual farmer, crofter, landowner, or business.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.