🧮 Agricultural Census

Learn about Agricultural Census 2015-16.

10th Agricultural Census 2015-16

  • The Agriculture Census in India is conducted at five yearly intervals NABARD 2021 to collect data on structural aspects of operational holdings in the country. It is coordinated by the Directorate of Economics and Statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers welfare.
  • The Agriculture Census programme is carried out in three phases at five yearly intervals with cooperation of States/UTs.
    • Phase I, all the operational holdings in the country are enumerated and results giving number I and area of operational holdings at various administrative levels like Block/Tehsil, District and State are generated according to various social groups, size classes, types of holdings and gender.
    • Phase II, only 20 percent of the villages in each Tehsil or Block are selected and detailed II information on aspects such as tenancy, land use, irrigation, cropping pattern of all the operational holdings of these selected villages is collected.
    • Phase III of the Agriculture Census, which is known as Input Survey, the data is collected on use III of different inputs from selected holdings of selected villages (7 per cent).
  • The Government of India provides financial and administrative support as well as all technical guidance to States/UTs required for Census operations.
  • The reference period for Agriculture Census is the Agricultural year (July-June).
  • The first comprehensive Agriculture Census in the country was conducted with reference year 1970-71. So far, nine Agriculture Censuses have been conducted in the country. The current Agriculture Census with reference year 2015-16 is Tenth in the series carried out in 36 states/UTs. Previous one was conducted in 2010-11.
  • Being the ultimate unit for taking agriculture-related decisions, operational holding has been taken as statistical unit at micro-level for data collection.
  • Operational Holding: All land which is used wholly or partly for agricultural production and is operated as one technical unit by one person alone or with others without regard to the title, legal form, size or location.
  • Technical Unit: A unit of land which is under the same management and has the same means of production such as labour force, machinery and animals.
  • The total number of operational holdings in the country has increased from 138.35 million in 2010-11 to 146.45 million in 2015-16 showing an increase of 5.86%.
  • The total operated area in the country has decreased from 159.59 million ha. in 2010-11 to 157.82 million ha in 2015-16 showing a decrease of 1.11%.
  • Increase in number of operational holdings and Decrease in operated area represents fragmentation of land holdings.
  • In a total of 146.45 million operational holdings in the country, the highest number of operational holders belonged to Uttar Pradesh (23.82 million i.e. 16%) followed by Bihar (16.41 million), Maharashtra (15.29 million), Madhya Pradesh (10.00 million), Karnataka (8.68 million), Andhra Pradesh (8.52 million), Tamil Nadu (7.94 million), Rajasthan (7.66 million), Kerala (7.58 million) etc.
  • As regards operated area, out of a total of 157.82 million ha, the highest operated area was contributed by Rajasthan (20.87 million ha), followed by Maharashtra (20.51 million ha.), Uttar Pradesh (17.45 million ha.), Madhya Pradesh (15.67 million ha.), Karnataka (11.81 million ha.) etc.
  • Among states, the highest increase in holdings was observed in the case of Madhya Pradesh(12.74%) followed by Andhra Pradesh (11.85%), Maharashtra (11.58%), Rajasthan (11.12%), Kerala (11.02%), Meghalaya (10.90%), Karnataka (10.83%) and Nagaland (10.16%) etc.
  • 14 out of 36 States/UTs in the country accounted for about 91.01% of the total number of operational holdings and about 88.19% of the total area operated in the country. These States were Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
  • The average size of operational holding has declined to 1.08 ha in 2015-16 as compared to 1.15 in 2010-11.
  • The percentage share of female operational holders has increased from 12.79% in 2010-11 to 13.96% (approx. 14%) in 2015-16 with the corresponding figures of 10.36% and 11.72% in the operated area. This shows that more and more females are participating in the management and operation of agricultural lands.
  • The Small and Marginal holdings taken together (0.00-2.00 ha.) constituted 86.08 % of the total holdings in 2015-16 against 85.01% in 2010-11 while their share in the operated area stood at 46.94 % in the current census as against 44.58% in 2010-11.
  • The Semi-medium and Medium operational holdings (2.00-10.00 ha.) in 2015-16 were only 13.35% with 43.99 % operated area. The corresponding figures for 2010-11 census were 14.29% and 44.82%.
  • The large holdings (10.00 ha. & above) were merely 0.57 % of total number of holdings in 2015-16 and had a share of 9.07 % in the operated area as against 0.70% and 10.59% respectively for 2010-11 census.
  • The average size of farm holding was the highest in Nagaland at 5.06 hectares and the lowest in Kerala at 0.18 hectare.
  • Kerala has highest percentage of the number of marginal land holdings with 96.70% of the total operational land holdings. The all-India average is 68.52%.
  • According to census 2011, there are 11.8 crore cultivators and 14.4 crore agricultural workers.

Size classes and size groups of operational holdings

State with highest operation land holding class

Percentage share of different social groups in number of operational holding

  • 11.84 % of the total number of operational holdings are held by Scheduled Castes & 8.65 % by ST.

World Census of Agriculture

After every 10 years World Census of Agriculture sponsored by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations essentially constitutes a series of National Agriculture Census taken all over the world in or around the same year within the framework of uniform concepts and definitions and a common programme of items coverage and tabulation.

Input Survey

In addition to Agriculture Census, an Input Survey is also conducted in the following year of the Agriculture Census at the interval of five years to collect information on use of various inputs like fertilizers, manures, Agriculture credit, implements and machinery, seeds, livestock etc. So far eight Input Surveys since 1976-77 have been completed.

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