A census of agriculture may be defined as a government-sponsored operation for the collection of quantitative information on agricultural structure, including that on persons attached to agricultural holdings, covering in principle the whole of a country within a given agricultural year. The history of modern agricultural censuses is quite long in some countries, beginning in 1840 in the United States. In the 1920s some attempts had been made to set up a world-wide agricultural census based on harmonized definitions and classifications, with the intention that the 1930 round be the first of a series of such censuses taken at ten-years intervals. However, it was only after World War II that international standards became more widely used in national agricultural censuses. Since 1950, FAO has been assisting countries in planning and conducting censuses of agriculture. Each of the decennial World Census of Agriculture Programmes prepared by FAO provided methodological guidelines for organizing national agricultural censuses. The six decennial Programmes - centred on 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000 - gradually expanded the census scope while keeping structural aspects of the agricultural production sector as the central theme.
Agricultural census results can be used in many different ways, ranging from very general to very specific technical applications. From a strictly statistical viewpoint, the census data represents one of the most important components of the information system in a country and can serve as the basis for many other statistical activities related to food and agriculture, such as conducting various agricultural sample surveys. While the raison d’être of the agricultural census is no doubt the use of census data for agricultural development planning and formulation of national agricultural policies, a much wider application of census results is possible.
This paper looks at agricultural censuses from the point of view of their applicability for the analysis of linkages between certain aspects of rural population change, natural resources and agricultural factors. Its objective is threefold: (a) to provide an overview of demographically relevant items available from censuses of agriculture, (b) to discuss selected subject areas that can be studied using population data from agricultural censuses, and (c) to identify some of the problems of using agricultural censuses to examine interactions between agricultural factors and demographic phenomena. Because the agricultural census is of particular importance to countries in which significant segments of the population depend on agriculture for their livelihood, the focus of the paper is on developing countries
Agricultural census results can be used in many different ways, ranging from very general to very specific technical applications. From a strictly statistical viewpoint, the census data represents one of the most important components of the information system in a country and can serve as the basis for many other statistical activities related to food and agriculture, such as conducting various agricultural sample surveys. While the raison d’être of the agricultural census is no doubt the use of census data for agricultural development planning and formulation of national agricultural policies, a much wider application of census results is possible.
This paper looks at agricultural censuses from the point of view of their applicability for the analysis of linkages between certain aspects of rural population change, natural resources and agricultural factors. Its objective is threefold: (a) to provide an overview of demographically relevant items available from censuses of agriculture, (b) to discuss selected subject areas that can be studied using population data from agricultural censuses, and (c) to identify some of the problems of using agricultural censuses to examine interactions between agricultural factors and demographic phenomena. Because the agricultural census is of particular importance to countries in which significant segments of the population depend on agriculture for their livelihood, the focus of the paper is on developing countries
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