Nitrogen use efficiency in Scotland: annual report 2026

Nitrogen Use Efficiency

In 2023, the whole economy Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) figure was 26%. Although the whole economy figure is dominated by food production, this figure is lower than the NUE figure for food production due to the inclusion of sources such as transport which produce no useful nitrogen outputs. The NUE for all food production is 32%, with the figure for agriculture (32%) being very similar, given that agriculture dominates food production. The 32% figure for all of agriculture comprises the value for arable agriculture of 64% and that for livestock based agriculture of 10%. Livestock based agriculture is inherently less nitrogen efficient than arable agriculture because only a small proportion of the ingested nitrogen by livestock ends up in useful nitrogen-containing produce.

The Whole Economy Nitrogen Use Efficiency is lower in 2023 than 2022, due to an expected decline in Agriculture efficiency. There was unusually good weather for farming in 2022 resulting in higher yields and lower fertiliser use which gave an increase in Nitrogen Use Efficiency and it was expected that a return to more typical weather would result in an NUE closer to previous years. This is indeed what happened, with 2023 having more typical weather its NUE figures are closer to the previous years on record (2019-2021) than to 2022.