The Scottish Economy

About three-fourths of Scotland is used for agriculture--crop cultivation and animal husbandry. But Scotland is still deficient in food production and must rely on imports. Manufacturing has long been the mainstay of its economy. With the exploitation of the North Sea natural gas and oil deposits, the extractive industries have entered a new phase and become of major importance.

Heavy industries, such as steelmaking and ship-building, have been the backbone of the manufacturing sector since the Industrial Revolution. Glasgow is still the principal marine engineering center in the United Kingdom. But foreign competition has forced diversification of industries and spurred a movement into high technology and consumer goods. Electronics and computers are among the notable new products from Scottish plants. Scotch tweed and textiles are still in demand, and the nation's world-famous whisky distilleries continue to flourish.

Coal used to be Scotland's chief mineral resource, but since the 1970's, coal has been eclipsed by oil. Most of Britain's offshore oil fields are in Scottish waters, and Aberdeen has evolved into head-quarters of the new oil industry. Large refineries have been established at Grangemouth and Dundee.

About half of the country's farmland, especially in the Highlands and Southern Uplands, is used for grazing sheep and cattle. Scotland is famous for its breeds of cattle--Aberdeen-Angus, -Galloway, and others--and the peculiar Scottish blackface sheep produce the wool for its tweeds. The major crops raised on the other half of the farmland, the best of which is in the Central Lowlands, are barley, oats, wheat, hay, and potatoes.

Depleted stocks and the closing of some traditional fishing grounds in the North Atlantic have created difficulties for many Scottish fishermen. Fishing, however, is still a major industry. Crabs and lobsters are taken in coastal waters, and cod, haddock, and other white fish as far away as Greenland and the White Sea. My own hometown of Anstruther used to be one of the largest Herring ports in Europe. Those days are long gone now - just as the Herring themselves disappeared one day from the fishing banks in the North Sea.

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