Agricultural Census

Agriculture Census

Government of India has been conducting Agriculture Census quinquennially since 1970-71, based on the broad guidelines of the World Agriculture Census conducted by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of United Nations. This is a 100% Central Sector Plan Scheme. An agricultural operational holding is taken as the statistical unit of data collection for describing the structure of Agriculture. The Department of Economics and Statistics is the nodal agency for conducting the census in Kerala. The whole project of Agriculture Census in the State is implemented in three distinct phases.

1. Phase 1(Listing)

A list of all operational holdings with their area and social characteristics of the holders of selected wards is prepared.

2. Phase 2 (Main Survey)

Detailed data on agricultural characteristics of operational holdings such as land use, irrigation status, tenancy particulars, cropping pattern etc. are collected from selected holdings of the selected wards.

3. Phase 3 (Input Survey)

Data on input use pattern such as seeds, chemical / bio fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural implements etc. are collected from selected holdings in selected wards.

The main objectives of the Agriculture Census are:-

· To describe Agriculture Structure and related characteristics of agriculture by providing statistical data on operational holdings including land utilization, agricultural machinery and implements, use of fertilizers pesticides etc.

· To provide bench mark data needed for formulating new agricultural development programmes and for evaluating their progress.

· To provide basic frames of households and operational holdings for carrying out future agriculture surveys and

· To lay a basis for developing an integrated programmes for current agricultural statistics.

Nine censuses were successfully completed and the corresponding reports were also published. 10^th Agriculture Census is now going on.

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