The National Farmers’ Union of Scotland (NFUS) is urging farmers and crofters to participate in its 2024 business intentions survey.
The union’s ‘help us to help you message’ garnered more than 550 responses from across all sectors last year.
NFUS said it wants to build on that database with updated information and the survey will close on January 15, 2024.
Head of the NFUS policy team, Gemma Cooper, said: “Our focus is to ensure that farming and crofting businesses are profitable and sustainable, and a solid evidence base is vital when we are speaking to policymakers and parliamentarians.
“We know that members are concerned about many things, including the direction of future support, spiralling costs of inputs and negative perceptions of what we do.
“We also know that our fantastic industry is full of innovation, change-making and forward-thinking food producers.”
Those who complete the survey are invited to enter a free draw to win a hamper of Scottish food and drink, valued at £100.
Cooper said the union’s network of local branches, regions and national committees is a “fantastic route” for information flow.
However, this needs to be supplemented with data from the new survey to get an accurate picture of how things are “on the ground” for farmers and crofters, she said.
“We know that policy is a key lever for business decisions and behavioural change, and we need to understand this first hand to help us be credible.
“I want to reassure anyone taking part in the survey that any individual information provided is confidential and we do not share this any further.
“Last year, our policy team were able to consider the combined survey data to identify main threads of information. Some of this was sectoral and some overarching.
“We used specific statistics in policy meetings and in political engagement. We used it to tell the story of Scottish farming and crofting and the contributions that our members make to the economy.”
