Scottish Farm Support Has Lost 27% of Its Value Since 2014, NFU Scotland Says. Why Waiting for the Government to Fix Your Income Is the Riskiest Plan of All

2 days ago

21 min read

Scottish hill farmer worried over support payment letters beside the same farm welcoming visitors at a farm shop, stone cottage farm stay and Highland cattle

Louise and Graeme Nicoll run a tenanted mixed farm near Forfar, in Angus. One day they worked out the sum nobody wants to see.

As Louise later told The Scottish Farmer, "Graeme was only earning £2 an hour which wasn't sustainable."

So should you wait for the Government to fix your income now that NFU Scotland says farm support has lost around 27% of its buying power since 2014? No. Back the campaign, but don't make the cheque your only plan. Build a second income through farm diversification in Scotland's booming visitor market, where you set the price.

The short answer:

NFU Scotland says inflation has cut the buying power of Scotland's roughly £677m farm support settlement by about 27% since 2014, and it wants £860m in the 2027-28 Budget. The Scottish Government has not promised that. Meanwhile the average Scottish farm made just £500 from farming itself in 2024-25. Farm diversification in Scotland, especially agritourism, is the one income you can price yourself, and visitor demand is already there.

If you've been searching for farm diversification Scotland ideas after doing your own version of Louise's sum, this article is for you. The Nicolls did something about it. On top of the farmhouse B&B and holiday cottage they had run since 2007, they launched paid farm tours in 2017. Today they also offer alpaca walks and lambing tours. They became the first winners of AgriScot's Diversified Farm of the Year award (the 2021 award, announced in February 2022).

Below: what NFU Scotland said, the honest numbers (good news included), five Scottish farms that stopped waiting, the paperwork questions to ask first, and a 90-day plan.

The NFU Scotland Budget Ask: What Was Actually Said

On 29 October 2026, at its Autumn Conference, NFU Scotland president Andrew Connon asked for Scotland's farm support to rise from about £677m to £860m in 2027-28. That is an extra £183m a year. He also wants it protected against inflation to 2030 and beyond.

His reason was blunt: "Without profitability, we have nothing."

The 27% figure comes from NFU Scotland's own analysis, reported by FarmingUK on 19 October. The union says agricultural inflation (fuel, fertiliser, machinery and labour) has cut the buying power of the indicative £677m settlement by about 27% compared with 2014. In Connon's words, the problem is that "the cash figure will stay the same while its real value continues to fall."

Bar chart: Scottish farm support of £677m buys what about £494m bought in 2014, NFU Scotland analysis, against its £860m budget ask — NFU Scotland says the £677m settlement has lost about 27% of its buying power since 2014. Illustrative arithmetic: £677m × 0.73 ≈ £494m.

You may have seen two different numbers. The Scottish Government says it invested over £660m in farming and food production in its latest budget, of which £540m was for direct support schemes, FarmingUK reported in January. NFU Scotland works from about £677m, the indicative settlement figure. Neither side sets out how the two numbers line up, so treat them as the same ballpark. Either way the story is the same: the cash is roughly flat, and flat cash buys less every year.

To be fair to the Government, it isn't pretending otherwise. Climate Action and Rural Affairs Secretary Gillian Martin told the same conference, in a speech published by the Scottish Government, she knows farmers are frustrated by inflation eating into support. "We share that frustration," she said. She also pointed out that Scotland's block grant from Westminster is not adjusted for inflation either, and repeated the Government's commitment to direct payments.

Here is the part every farmer should underline. The Scottish Government has not committed to £860m. And its own analysis of the UK Budget on 28 October says Scotland's resource block grant faces a real-terms cut of about 1.3% in 2027-28, roughly £550m. Capital funding falls about 1.5% in real terms, roughly £100m.

NFU Scotland is right to campaign. Scottish agriculture produces about £5.1bn of gross output and underpins a food and drink sector worth around £19bn, yet Connon says the agricultural and rural economy budget is under 1% of Scottish Government spending. That is a strong case.

But a strong case is not a guaranteed cheque.

The Honest Picture: 2025 Was a Record Year. So Why Worry?

Let's be straight with you, because you can check these figures yourself.

Scotland's Total Income From Farming hit about £1.46bn in 2025. That is the highest on record. High prices for cattle, milk and potatoes lifted gross output to a record £5.06bn.

So why is this article not a celebration?

Because look at what happened just before it. In 2023, the same measure was about £783m, a five-year low. In two years it nearly doubled. Prices you don't set pushed it up, and prices you don't set can push it back down.

Bar chart of Scotland's Total Income From Farming 2023 to 2025 against Scottish farm support payments — Total Income From Farming swung from £783m to £1.46bn in two years. Support fell 6% in real terms in 2025.

Meanwhile support payments went the other way. They totalled £589m in 2025, down 6% in real terms, after a 5% real-terms fall the year before. The Scottish Government's own explanation is the "fixed rate of the Basic Payment Scheme", which did not rise with inflation.

And support still carries a lot of weight. Over the ten years from 2016 to 2025, support payments made up around 64% of profit from farming on average.

What the average farm actually earned

Zoom in from the national total to a single farm and the picture gets sharper. The Scottish Government surveys about 400 commercial farms every year. In 2024-25, the average Farm Business Income was £58,800, up 30% on a poor year before.

Here is where that money came from:

Source of income (average Scottish farm, 2024-25)	Amount	Share of total
Farming itself (output minus costs)	£500	about 1%
Support payments	£45,600	about 78%
Diversification	£8,100	about 14%
Contracting	£4,600	about 8%
Total Farm Business Income	£58,800	100%

Read that first line again. £273,700 of output, £273,200 of costs, and £500 left over. And that was the good year. The year before, farming itself made a loss of £13,900.

Average Scottish farm income 2024-25: £500 from farming, £45,600 support, £8,100 farm diversification, £4,600 contracting — The average Scottish farm earned about 16 times as much from diversification as from farming itself in 2024-25.

Diversification brought in £8,100. That is 16 times what farming itself made.

Now look at farm types. Only 41% of Scottish farms made a profit without support payments in 2024-25. For sheep farms in Less Favoured Areas (LFA), it was just 7%. The year before, it was zero.

Scottish farm business income by farm type 2024-25, dairy £218,500 to LFA sheep £4,800 and lowland cattle and sheep £900 — Dairy and general cropping farms earned the most in 2024-25. LFA sheep farms averaged £4,800 and lowland cattle and sheep farms £900, support included.

The Squeeze You Can Feel in the Yard

The monthly price data is fresher, and it isn't kind.

In the 12 months to August 2026, Defra's UK index of farm input prices rose 8.6%. Energy and lubricants rose 23.3%. Fertiliser rose 13%. Over the same 12 months, the prices farmers got for what they sell fell 5.4%.

UK farm input costs vs output prices to August 2026: energy up 23.3%, fertiliser up 13%, output prices down 5.4% — Costs rising while farm-gate prices fall: the scissors squeeze, 12 months to August 2026.

That's a pair of scissors closing on your margin. Flat-cash support sits on top of that squeeze; it doesn't fix it. We covered why you shouldn't build a plan around one lucky break on input costs in why the fertiliser tariff cut is no reason to relax.

Then there's the road ahead. Farmers Weekly reported in July 2026 that the planned Tier 1 budget in Scotland's new support system falls from £399m to £332m by 2030. That's a plan, not a certainty, but it is about 17% less in cash before you even count inflation.

Some sectors are already bleeding. NFU Scotland says independent pig producers have lost more than £1m a month between them since March. The Government's existing support package for the sector is £2m, and the union says more help may be needed.

Why Waiting Is the Riskiest Plan of All

Most farmers think the risky move is spending money on something new. I'd argue the opposite. The riskiest plan is the one where somebody else controls three things about your income.

No. 1: You don't control the amount. Your payment rate is set in Edinburgh, under a budget squeezed from London. You can lobby, but you can't invoice for a rise.

No. 2: You don't control the timing. The Nicolls' farm was among those hit when Scotland's farm-payment IT problems delayed support money, as the Press and Journal reported. Louise has said tourism helps with cash flow, and you can see why. If your cash flow already keeps you up at night, read why you pay for months before you get paid.

No. 3: You don't control the rules. Support will go only to active farmers, under a test whose details are still to come. A Whole Farm Plan is now part of Tier 1, and Tier 1 Essential Standards are due from 2030. Every rule change can move your cheque.

This isn't a Scottish quirk. Europe is redrawing its own farm subsidies for 2028-2034, which is why we wrote that the smartest farmers never let a government cheque be their business plan.

Neale McQuistin farms in the Luce Valley in Dumfries and Galloway. He told Wikifarmer that without subsidies, "I don't think I'd have made a profit in any year since 1976."

He didn't wait for that to change. He went and found people who would pay to meet his Highland cows. More on him in a moment.

Farm Diversification Scotland: The One Income You Price Yourself

Here is the simple idea at the heart of this article.

Your BPS payment is a fixed rate per hectare. When fuel, fertiliser and wages go up, the cheque doesn't. Its real value quietly falls.

A night in your cottage, a ticket for your lambing tour or a place on your Highland cow walk is different. You set that price. You can review it every season. When your costs go up, your price can go up too. That's why visitor income can rise with your own prices while a fixed payment shrinks.

Flowchart: fixed Scottish farm support payment loses real value while agritourism visitor income rises with prices the farmer sets — A fixed support rate vs a price you set yourself.

Here is a simple worked example, with made-up round numbers. Say your farm tour has 4,000 visitors a year. If bookings hold, a £5 rise on each ticket is another £20,000 a year, with no extra land, no extra fertiliser and no form to fill in. Try asking for a £20,000 rise on your support payment.

Many farmers set their visitor prices too low. If that's you, read why most farm stays are undercharging and how to price for the experience, not just your costs.

The official figures back this up. In 2024-25, 60% of Scottish farms had at least one diversified activity. The income gap between diversified and non-diversified farms widened to £32,600, up from £20,300 the year before.

Agritourism looks especially strong. VisitScotland's 2022 Growth Tracker found agritourism profit margins of about 20% in 2020/21, against about 7% for farm profit excluding subsidies. That was a pandemic-affected year, so treat it with care. But it points in the same direction as everything else.

For a wider comparison, see our breakdown of agritourism vs traditional farming income.

5 Scottish Farms That Stopped Waiting

These are real farms with real numbers from published sources. Older figures are marked as historic.

Shaggy Highland cow in a green Scottish field, the kind of animal behind Highland cow tours in Scotland — Illustrative photo, not Kitchen Coos & Ewes. Photo: Charlie Parker on Unsplash.

No. 1: Kitchen Coos & Ewes, Luce Valley, Dumfries and Galloway

Neale and Janet McQuistin are tenants at High Airyolland, about 900 acres, two-thirds of it hill. Neale is the seventh generation on the land. They keep Beltex sheep, pedigree Highland cattle and a commercial herd of Highland-cross cows.

In 2019 they soft-launched one Highland cow tour. Covid shut them down just after they'd ordered a bigger trailer. They kept going.

By 2023 they had 4,000 visitors, and Scotland Starts Here reported that numbers had "doubled every year." By late 2025, Wikifarmer put them at about 8,000 visitors a year, which is roughly as many as the land can take. Neale told Scotland Starts Here they have had more visitors from America than from Stranraer.

Their website lists the main tours at £24 to £46 a head, plus shorter seasonal tours from £15. Scotland Starts Here reported in 2024 that they had won Best Outdoor or Adventure Experience at the Thistle Awards two years in a row.

The lesson: the remoteness of a hill farm can be exactly what visitors pay to see.

No. 2: Newton Farm Holidays & Tours, near Forfar, Angus

You've met the Nicolls already. Graeme and Louise farm about 550 acres as tenants on the Fothringham Estate: malting barley, potatoes, sheep, goats, suckler cows, and a few Highland cows kept for tours.

Their farmhouse B&B starts from £60 per person per night, and a three-night cottage stay from £360. Louise launched farm tours in February, the quietest month on the farm. At lambing time they have run up to four tours a day.

The AgriScot judges said the Nicolls had turned around their business finances.

No. 3: Lennox of Lomond, west shore of Loch Lomond

The Lennox family has farmed here for 11 generations, since the 1750s, on a tenanted hill sheep and cattle farm inside Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park. They've run self-catering cottages since the 1970s.

From 2019 to 2022 they were an Agritourism Monitor Farm. Alongside the cottages they built "Bonnie Barns", luxury lodges with hot tubs, in stages: two new lodges built in 2022 took the total to five. They also run farm tours, sheepdog demonstrations and live lambing sessions.

In 2022 they welcomed more than 3,000 visitors, with more than 800 at lambing experiences alone. They paid for it themselves. They weren't eligible for Leader funding, and as tenants they couldn't get a business loan.

Kay Wilson, who runs the agritourism side with her husband Dougie and her parents Bobby and Anne Lennox, gave her verdict on the new lodges: "financially, the extra income will be very welcome."

No. 4: The Hideaway Experience, Balkello Farm, Auchterhouse, Angus

Caroline and Ross Millar run a mixed arable, sheep and beef farm. They opened their first romantic hideaway in 2005 and have since grown to five.

In January 2014 (a historic figure), when they had three hideaways, Farmers Weekly reported they brought in about £140,000 a year. That beat the revenue from the farm's arable and livestock businesses, from a tiny fraction of the land, reported as about 0.6%.

Caroline Millar is now Sector Lead for Scottish Agritourism, helping farms across the country do what she proved on her own.

No. 5: Craigie's Farm, South Queensferry, Edinburgh

John and Kirsteen Sinclair took over a struggling beef and dairy farm in 1995, according to SRUC. They switched to soft fruit and vegetables, added pick-your-own, grew the farm shop, opened a café in 2007 and a "Little Farmers" adventure park in 2021.

Today Craigie's welcomes about 260,000 visitors a year. John and his son George won SRUC's Alumni Diversification Award in 2025. On the farm's website, John sums it up: "Farming and family are at the heart of everything at Craigies Farm."

If you're near a town or city, Craigie's is your model. For an English example of the same path, read the Roots Farm Shop story.

The five farms side by side

Farm	Area	What they added	A real number
Kitchen Coos & Ewes	Dumfries and Galloway	Highland cow tours (2019)	About 8,000 visitors a year (late 2025)
Newton Farm	Angus	B&B (2007), farm tours (2017)	B&B from £60 per person per night
Lennox of Lomond	Loch Lomond	Cottages, five lodges, lambing	3,000+ visitors in 2022
The Hideaway Experience	Angus	Five romantic hideaways (from 2005)	About £140,000 a year (historic, about 2014)
Craigie's Farm	Edinburgh	PYO, farm shop, café, play park	About 260,000 visitors a year

Notice what's missing from that table. None of these families made a better support settlement their plan. Want more UK examples? The 2026 British Farming Awards finalists are full of them.

Scotland's Ready Market: Agritourism Scotland by the Numbers

Here's the good news the support debate tends to drown out. The customers already exist, and they're growing faster than anyone planned.

In April 2026, VisitScotland published its latest Scottish Agritourism Growth Tracker. Agritourism and farm retail in Scotland are now worth £292.9m. The 2030 target was £250m. The sector got there five years early.

Agritourism Scotland growth: £292.9m value vs £250m 2030 target and 2.5 million visitors vs 2 million target — Scottish agritourism passed its 2030 value and visitor targets early, according to the 2025 tracker survey.

Here's what else the tracker found:

2.5 million visitors, against a 2030 target of 2 million.
888 active businesses, against a 2030 target of 1,000. There is still room for you.
About 8,000 full-time-equivalent jobs.
Almost half of agritourism and farm retail businesses started after 2020.
£533m invested so far, with £200m more planned over the next two years.
The most common activities: self-catering (67%), farm tours and experiences (40%), and on-farm cafés and food (just over a quarter).

Sector lead Caroline Millar said the sector had "met two key 2030 national strategy targets" early.

Wider tourism points the same way. Day visits to the countryside or villages in Scotland jumped 31% in 2025 to 12.9 million, and spending on them rose 51% to £650m. British residents took 2.0 million overnight trips to the Scottish countryside or villages that year and spent £648m.

Then there are overseas visitors. Early official estimates put Scotland at 4.2 million international visits in 2025, spending about £3.9bn. That's a little below the record 4.4 million reported for 2024. In 2024, North Americans alone made 1.1 million visits and spent £1,577m.

White cottage in a green glen at Glencoe, Scotland, illustrating farm stays in Scotland — Illustrative photo, not a farm named in this article. Photo: Gilley Aguilar on Unsplash.

One honest warning. Not every accommodation type fills up. A Farm Advisory Service summary of the 2024 occupancy survey put glamping units at about 23% occupancy, against about 59% for lodges and chalets. Pick your product with care, and test demand before you build. Our guide to how much it costs to start an agritourism business can help you size it.

Before You Build: The Paperwork Questions to Ask

Scotland has its own rules, and some of them are strict. This section isn't legal advice. It's a list of questions to take to your council, your solicitor, your insurer and RPID before you spend serious money.

1. Do I need a short-term let licence? Almost certainly, if guests stay overnight. Every short-term let in Scotland needs a licence. A new host must have one before taking bookings or guests; hosts already trading had to apply by 1 October 2023. That includes pods and yurts. Each premises needs its own licence, which usually lasts three years, and the licence number must appear in your adverts. Conditions include fire safety, gas and electrical checks (EICR and PAT testing), a legionella risk assessment, an EPC where relevant, and both buildings and public liability insurance. Operating without one is a criminal offence, with a fine of up to £2,500 and a possible one-year ban on applying.

2. Do I need planning permission, or do permitted development rights cover me? Since 1 April 2021, Scotland's permitted development rights let some agricultural buildings (built before 4 November 2019) convert to houses, up to five per holding and 150 square metres each, or to commercial uses such as a shop, café, office or storage, up to 500 square metres in total. You still have to apply to the council to check whether prior approval is needed, and meet building standards (normally a building warrant). Holiday accommodation is not on the list of permitted commercial uses, so ask your planning authority early. A caravan or pod site may also need a site licence.

3. Do I need to register as a food business? Yes, if you sell food, even cream teas. Register free with your council's environmental health team at least 28 days before you open.

4. Does my farm insurance cover paying visitors? Don't assume it does. Ask your insurer in writing. Public liability insurance is a condition of a short-term let licence. Our guide to agritourism insurance lists what to ask for.

5. What does HSE expect if visitors touch animals? Animal contact can spread E. coli O157 and Cryptosporidium. HSE says you need running water, soap and paper towels, and that gels and wipes are not a substitute. The fatal injury rate in agriculture, forestry and fishing in Great Britain is about 22 times the all-industry average, so plan routes, gates and machinery carefully.

6. Will I pay business rates or council tax? A self-catering let is rated as a business only if it's available for 140 nights or more and actually let for 70 nights or more in the year. Otherwise it goes on the council tax list. The Small Business Bonus Scheme gives 100% relief up to a rateable value of £12,000 in 2026-27, but not to a let that needs a licence and doesn't have one. Read more on business rates relief for farm shops.

7. Do I need a licence to sell alcohol at an event? For a one-off event on unlicensed premises, ask your local licensing board about an occasional licence. Only a premises or personal licence holder, or a voluntary organisation, can apply. Each one lasts up to 14 days and costs £10. Selling alcohol without one can bring a fine of up to £20,000.

8. Will this affect my support payments? Ask RPID before you build. Yards, buildings, roads and tracks aren't eligible for BPS, and non-farming activities on farmland have to be measured and deducted from your claimed area. A car park or pod base on a field could shrink your eligible hectares. Keep an eye on the coming active farmer test too.

9. Can I charge people to walk on my land? Scotland's access rights let people walk over most farmland free of charge, though they don't cover farmyards, buildings or fields with growing crops. So a fee just to walk where access rights apply is unlikely to stand up. What you can sell is something extra: a guided tour, an animal experience or a service. Ask an adviser where your line sits.

For the bigger picture on staying safe and legal, read how to protect your farm stay.

Reality Check:

The costliest mistake in farm diversification is building first and asking second. A pod that can't get a licence, a car park that cuts your BPS area, or a café your insurer won't cover can wipe out years of profit. Ring your planning officer, your licensing team, RPID and your insurer before you order a single sheet of timber. Every one of those calls is free.

A Simple 90-Day Plan for Farm Diversification in Scotland

You don't need a five-year masterplan to start. You need 90 days and one small paid offer.

Sheep in an autumn field on the Isle of Skye, illustrating farm diversification in Scotland — Illustrative photo, not a farm named in this article. Photo: Filiz Elaerts on Unsplash.

Days 1 to 30: Know your numbers and pick one offer

Write down what your farm made last year from farming, support and anything else, just like the table above. That's your baseline.

Then walk the farm with fresh eyes. What would a family from Glasgow, Manchester or Ohio pay to do here? Bottle-feed a lamb? Meet Highland cows? Watch a sheepdog work? Sleep in the old steading? Our list of 25 proven agritourism income streams will spark ideas.

Pick one. Then make the four phone calls from the Reality Check above.

Field-Tested Play:

Louise Nicoll launched Newton Farm's tours in February, the quietest month on the farm. Start your first paid offer in your slack season, when you have time to get it right and the extra cash comes in during a quiet month.

Days 31 to 60: Test it small, with real money

Run a paid test before you invest in anything big. A lambing open morning, a guided farm walk, or a cream tea tour. Charge a proper price, take bookings online, and ask every guest what they'd pay for next time.

Our guide to testing agritourism with a 60-minute MVP shows you how.

Field-Tested Play:

Kitchen Coos & Ewes didn't open with a full menu of tours. In 2019 they soft-launched just one, the "Insta-Coo Tour". Once people were paying for it, they added more. Prove demand with one offer before you build the second.

Days 61 to 90: Review your price and plan the next step

Look at what sold out and what didn't. If you were fully booked, your price was probably too low. Raise it for the next round.

Start a list of every guest's email or phone number. These people are your future repeat bookings.

Only now should you think about bigger spending, such as converting a building or adding accommodation. When you do, our step-by-step farm stay guide walks you through it.

Field-Tested Play:

The Lennox family built their lodges in stages and paid for them themselves. The Millars opened one hideaway in 2005 and now have five. Let the first unit's bookings tell you whether to build the second.

What a Durian Farm in Malaysia Taught Me About One-Income Farms

I'm Stephen Loke, founder of Bloopy Durians in Bentong, Malaysia. Our climate couldn't be further from a Perthshire hillside, but the lesson travels.

Durian season is short, about four to five months a year. If the farm lived only on fruit sales in those months, every bad season would hurt the whole year. That taught me early never to rely on one income.

So we built more than one. Visitors now come from all over the world, from Germany, Japan, Australia, the UK, Canada, America, China and beyond. Many companies send their staff and management to the farm. Guests reach us by a four-wheel-drive adventure, which became an income stream of its own. You can read how the 4WD ride brought revenue to my durian farm.

We also keep a WhatsApp list of loyal customers who buy whenever durians are available. That list is one of the most reliable incomes we have, because those customers come back every season.

And many of our visitors find us because we rank at the top of Google. Nobody in government gave us that. We built it ourselves.

Your farm in Angus or Argyll can do the same: an experience you price, a list of loyal customers, and visitors who find you online.

What to Watch for on 3 December

The Scottish Budget is due on Thursday 3 December 2026. I'm writing this before it's published, so treat what follows as a watch list, not a forecast.

Watch the headline figure. Does farm support stay near £660m to £677m in cash, or move towards NFU Scotland's £860m?

Watch for inflation protection. Is there any multi-year promise that the money will rise with costs to 2030? That is the heart of the NFUS ask.

Watch the tiers. The Government's Rural Support Plan says 70% of funding will go through direct payments. Watch whether the planned fall in the Tier 1 pot towards £332m by 2030 changes.

Watch the schemes. A further Agri-Environment Climate Scheme round is due to open in early 2027, and the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme continues to 2029.

Watch for one word: tourism. The Rural Affairs Secretary's conference speech didn't mention diversification or tourism at all. If the Budget does, that's a signal worth following.

Whatever the number is on 3 December, the questions on your farm stay the same. How much of your income do you control? And what are you doing this winter to raise it?

If the Budget also leaves you worried about passing the farm on, read why your farm needs an income the taxman can't squeeze.

Frequently Asked Questions

Has Scottish farm support really lost 27% of its value since 2014?

That's NFU Scotland's own calculation, not an official statistic. The union says agricultural inflation (fuel, fertiliser, machinery and labour) has cut the buying power of the roughly £677m settlement by about 27% since 2014. Official figures do confirm support fell 5% in real terms in 2024 and 6% in 2025.

What is NFU Scotland asking for in the 2027-28 Budget?

It wants farm support raised from about £677m to £860m, an extra £183m a year, and protected against inflation to 2030 and beyond. The Scottish Government has not committed to that figure.

Weren't Scottish farm incomes a record in 2025?

Yes. Total Income From Farming hit about £1.46bn, the highest on record, driven largely by high cattle, milk and potato prices. But it was only about £783m in 2023. That swing is the point: market income moves with prices you don't control, while support is falling in real terms.

How much does the average Scottish farm earn from diversification?

In 2024-25 the average farm earned £8,100 from diversification, against £500 from farming itself. Farms with diversified activities earned £32,600 more on average than those without.

Will starting agritourism affect my support payments?

It can, through land eligibility. Buildings, yards, tracks and hard standings aren't eligible for BPS, and non-farming use of farmland must be deducted from your claimed area. Speak to RPID or your adviser before you build anything on claimed land.

Do I need a short-term let licence for glamping pods in Scotland?

In most cases, yes. Scotland's licensing scheme covers unconventional accommodation such as pods and yurts. There are narrow exclusions, for example a guest's own tent, so use the Government's licence checker and ask your council.

What's the cheapest way to start agritourism in Scotland?

Start with something that uses what you already have: a guided farm walk, a lambing experience, a Highland cow tour or a cream tea in the farmhouse kitchen. Test it with paying guests before you spend on buildings.

Is agritourism Scotland worth trying if my farm is remote?

Remote can be an advantage. Neale McQuistin of Kitchen Coos & Ewes in the Luce Valley says they have had more visitors from America than from Stranraer. Scotland had 4.2 million international visits in 2025, and countryside day visits rose 31%.

Is Your Farm Ready for Paying Visitors?

You've seen the numbers. The next question is whether your farm is ready. Our free Farm Readiness Quiz takes a few minutes and shows you where your farm is strong, where the gaps are, and which agritourism ideas fit you best.

Take the Free Farm Readiness Quiz

Want ideas you can start this winter? Our free ebook, "150 Ways to Unlock Hidden Wealth From Your Farm", gives you 150 ways to earn more from the land, buildings and equipment you already own. Each idea shows how hard it is to start, how to price it and what it could earn, so you can pick the right one for your farm without guessing.

Get Your Free Copy of 150 Ways

P.S. The Nicolls didn't wait for anyone to fix that £2 an hour. They did the sum and added something to the business they could price themselves. Your sum might look different. The first step is the same: work it out this winter, then build an income nobody else sets for you.

Stephen Loke of AgritourismSuccess.com, whose farm is featured in Bloomberg News and Asahi Shimbun, writes about agritourism for farmers who want a better income. This article is general information, written before the Scottish Budget of 3 December 2026, and is not legal, tax, planning or financial advice; check the rules with your council, RPID and professional advisers before you act.