AGRICULTURAL CENSUS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 291, 8 December 1928, Page 22 (Supplement)

AGRICULTURAL CENSUS

A WORLD-WIDE PROJECT TO BE TAKEN IN 1930. The first world census of any kind is to be made of agriculture in 1930, writes tho New York Times. Final arrangements for it an* to be made by the Nineteenth General Assembly of the International Institute of Agriculture, which meets at Rome, Italy, on October ID. Leon M. Estabrook, a United Slates Department of Agriculture statistician, is the director of the census-taking enterprise. The census is expected to mark the beginning of the development of facilties and practices whereby accurate and complete information on agriculture th roughtout the world will be available currently to tho extent that such information is now available in several countries. ’The full worth of much agricultural data now gathered regularly is not realised for the reason that only a portion of the facts bearing on equations like supply and demand arc covered. Students of the subject say that prices of the principal agricultural products are being shaped more and more by world conditions. The farm census also may prove to be a first step towards other all-world surveys, such as surveys of population—for the world as a whole a matter of estimates—and manufactures. Plans for the all-world farm census were originated by the International Institute of Agriculture, which was founded by M. Lubin, an American, about 20 years ago, ami is now maintained co-operatively by the Governments of the chief farming countries. Funds for preliminary arrangements for the census wore supplied by the International Education Board, an establishment of the. Ruck feller Foundation. The work has been under the supervision of an international committee, of which Rudolph Benini, of Italy, has been chairman, and R. J. Thompson, of England, secretary. Unknown Qualities. “Of the countries listed by the Institute, only 60 have ever taken an agricultural census,” said Mr Estabrook. “Practically all of the others figure in the international phases of agricultural problems. Most of them produce in some measure for export and all of them import farm products. “We can only estimate as to these countries and estimates are uncertain, for the data on which to base them is incomplete. Crop forecasting in the United States would bo scarcely more than mere guessing if we did not haw census data, now collected in detail every five years, as bases for projectin’ reports. “The all-world census in 1930 will cover crops and farming conditions as of 1929 in the northern hemisphere, and as of the last half of 1929 and the first halt of 1930 in the southern hemisphere. Schedules and definitions will be uniform. These already are comprehended in this country's census taking; hence the tacts needed for all-world computations will he drawn from the regular reports, which include much more in this country.

“Inasmuch as nothing of the kind ever has been done in many lands, the scope of the all-world census will no limited to prime essentials. Tentative schedules include the taking of tho names of all operators of farms of two acres and a-half and larger size, and classifications as to owners, tenants, and managers. The area of all farm units will be designated, together with the distribution as to use for cultivation,, pasture, woodland, and so on.

“Actual plantings and yields of principal crops, such as grain, root, and forage products, industrial crops of the sugar-yielding kind, fibre crops like cotton and flax, the oil seed products, vegetables and fruits that are grown generally or widely and vineyard and orchard products, will bo recorded. Even Domestic Animals. “Principal domestic animals, including even those peculiar to certain areas, like camels, elephants, and ostriches, will be enumerated, some of them as to sex and age. “Farm work will be surveyed in rather full detail, both as to 'employment of members of farmers’ families and of hired workers, with rates of pay and practices as to housing and t ceding. The character aud use of fertilisers will be recorded and principal articles of farm machinery found on farms will be enumerated. Thus the findings will bo of great help to many manufacturers.” There are many evidences of an unusual change under way in agricultural production and consumption. The food habits of many peoples have changed much in recent years. For example, per capita consumption of cereals and meats has been tending downward in this country and upward in Middle lairope. Aft the same time Middle European farming is evidently tending away from production of staples and apparently concentrating more and more on products that are less dependent than, say, the bread grains on the cultivation of big areas. Such tendencies may be having an effect on international trade in many farm products. While they expect it to be the biggest of all moves yet made in the direction of developing and co-ordinat-ing facilities for keeping up with agriculture, promoters of the census say that it may be more important as a start than as an actual achievement. They are not sure how fully many of the Governments that have pledged cooperation will or can produce full findings. For example, it is hardly possible that the census taking will be anything like complete in China, one of the foremost farming countries, and statistically probably the least known of all. Co-operation by British and native rulers is expected to yield good results for India, however.

In some countries where farmers long have been accustomed to census-taking, there is among the peasants much suspicion of census-takers. Russia is an example. But for many years now farm census findings in this and several other countries have been regarded as about as accurate as they could be made. Those findings are the chief basis of practically all studies of and reports on farming subjects.