It is a lifestyle championed by Prince Charles which has aimed to attract more young people to keep the ages-old tradition alive.

But it seems crofting really is an ancient way of life.

For there are more crofters aged over 80 than there are under 40, the latest research has shown.

The annual report of the Crofting Commission has revealed that there were just 1318 crofters in the 21 to 40 age range.

But five more in the 80 plus category!

The commission also says it is continuing to crack down on absentee crofters.

The number of registered crofters has fallen by 10,000 – because of an earlier calculation mistake made by the commission - to 16,370.

They have 21,186 crofts between them - with the bulk mainly in the Western Isles and Highlands.

The last review by the Scottish Government found that the median crofting revenue per household was £2,000 per annum, but there had been an increase in the number of crofters reporting incomes "much higher" than that average.

Crofters were also diversifying into such things as providing holiday accommodation.

The Crofting Commission’s main function is to regulate crofting so that it is fully compliant with the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993. The majority of their work consists of processing regulatory applications and recording notifications.

The annual report shows that compliance with legal duties relating to the holding of a croft has improved over the past year. Crofters have a legal duty to complete and return an annual crofting census form and 75.5% of them did so – an increase of 6.5% on 2018.

Tenants and owner-occupiers have a legal duty to live on, or within 32km (20 miles) of their croft, not to misuse or neglect it and to cultivate and maintain the holding, or put it to another purposeful use.

Of the 686 crofters nationally reported as not complying with their duties, 465 were non-resident and 153 were not cultivating, misusing or neglecting their crofts.

The largest group was of crofters was aged between 61 and 80 (5,780), followed by those in the 41-60 age group (5,453).

Rod Mackenzie, convener of the commission, said in his foreword, of its main duties, the easiest to monitor and regulate was non-residency.

"Our team already write to those who have indicated on their annual crofting census form that they are not ordinarily resident, but they now also have plans to write to those who have indicated on their crofting census form that they are resident on the croft, but their residential address would indicate otherwise," he said.

"Other plans will be to write to those who have habitually not returned their crofting census forms. The reason for not returning a census form can be many fold, not just that the crofter is not resident, it may be that the Commission has the wrong address or that the crofter has died and the Commission has not been informed.

"The team also investigates cases of suspected breach of duty reported by a grazings committee or by a member of the crofting community. The important message here from our RALU ((Residency and Land Use Team) team is that although they will issue letters, there are mitigating actions that non-resident crofters can take to resolve their breach of duties.

"This Board of Commissioners is fully supportive of getting vacant, unused crofts back in use, as there are many benefits that will ensue, such as local food production, maintaining rural populations, environmental benefits and many more."

During the year the RALU team-initiated correspondence with 77 crofters who were advised they were in breach of duty for the first time.

Also 40 crofters were contacted who failed to take steps to resolve their transgression and 16 crofters were reported as being in breach of duty.

Six croft tenancies were terminated during the course of the year.

But in the past some absentee crofters have been tracked down living in Turkey and Australia!

Measures were written into the 2010 Crofting Act to try and better tackle absenteeism.

Prince Charles had high hopes that crofting would help fight depopulation in rural areas.

So enamoured with the wife of life, that Charles worked as a crofter in two five-day stays on the Outer Hebridean island of Berneray - the last was in 1991 with TV presenter Selina Scott for the programme A Prince Among Islands.

Charles planted and lifted potatoes, helped with the sheep and planted trees and told islanders that he found crofting very inspirational and he loved it because it was so close to his philosophy. He took many of the things he learned on Berneray and used them on his organic farm at Highgrove