SCOTTISH FARMING'S vital statistics, the results of the annual June agricultural census, have revealed continued growth in the area of cereals being planted.

Scotland's Chief Statistician noted that the area of cereals had increased for the fourth consecutive year, with a noticeable move back to winter-planted crops enabled by better weather.

Wheat was up 22,000 hectares, offset by falls of 12,000 hectares in barley and 7,000 hectares in oats, both of which are generally spring-planted. The areas planted with oilseed rape, and vegetables for human consumption, also saw increases.

There was, however, another fall in the area of potatoes, though the more valuable seed potato crop increased slightly.

The results for the country's faltering livestock sector were more mixed.

After decreases in previous years, sheep numbers were up 2% to 6.7 million due to 165,000 more lambs being born in the better weather of 2014. But breeding ewe numbers continued to fall, dropping by 12,000, continuing the decline in the productive national flock that began in 1998.

Pig numbers also saw a small increase of 8,000, or 3%, after large decreases in recent years. Poultry saw an increase of 560,000, or 4%, to 14.7 million, though this is within the normal fluctuations of poultry numbers.

The total number of cattle fell by 4,000 to 1.79 million. Within this, the number of dairy cattle increased 3% to 274,000, but the number of beef cattle fell 2% to 713,000 and the number of calves fell by 0.8% to 526,600.

Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead said: "The statistics show a sustained increase in the amount of arable land in Scotland over the past few years. This is encouraging, as is the increase in pig and dairy cattle since 2013, in contrast to the continuing longer-term decline in sheep and beef cattle.

"I have listened carefully to industry concerns about Scotland's livestock sector and have designed the new Common Agricultural Policy in Scotland to target support at beef and sheep, in line with industry's stated priorities."

NFU Scotland policy manager Peter Loggie said: "It was expected that the winter crop areas would have recovered and spring barley would be down given that in 2012 and 2013 winter cropping was depressed by bad autumn weather and spring barley and spring oats had been planted by growers who had been unable to get their winter crops in.

"The cereals area, announced as being the highest since 1998, is up by just over half of 1% from 2013 - not earth-shattering but an improvement."

For in-depth news and views on Scottish agriculture, see this Friday's issue of The Scottish Farmer or visit www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk