Agriculture and farming opportunities

We’ve over 200 farming agreements on areas of our land. That’s as big as 25,000 rugby pitches (25,000 ha). It’s mostly on hills and land around our forests and is used as grazing for sheep or cattle.

We create opportunities for farming wherever this complements our work to look after Scotland’s national forests and land. Each opportunity is unique depending on where it’s located and what the land is like. The application form for each opportunity will have more details.

These opportunities offer start-up grazing areas for new farmers to build their experience.

We prefer applications from people who are new to running a farm. We sometimes consider applications from established businesses.

We also work with other landowners through the Scottish Government Farming Opportunities for New Entrants (FONE) group. We promote opportunities to attract new people into agriculture. 

In some places livestock grazing can help protect and improve habitats. Learn more about this on our conservation grazing page.

Using technology to deliver many benefits

We’ve been testing ‘virtual fence’ technology across Scotland. For this, the animals wear satellite trackers that look like cowbells. We ‘draw’ fences on a map on a phone or tablet. If the animals go near one of these digital lines the tracker warns them off with a loud noise.

This could help control the movement of livestock in forests and on open land.