Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses Xu ZhiQuan Department of Rural Surveys, National Bureau of Statistics

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 1. Introduction Agriculture still has been playing an important role in economic activities although China has achieved rapid development in recent 30 years we built agriculture statistical system through integrating conventional sampling surveys with periodic censuses.

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 1. Introduction Agricultural census system was built in 1995: it was conducted decennially and in the year ending as The Second Agricultural Census are taking

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 1. Introduction China’s two censuses are a process of unceasing exploration and innovation by continuous studying and using the advanced international experience according to its own national conditions The structure of this article

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 2. Main Experiences of Agricultural Census 2.1 Regulations on National Agricultural Census --In 2006, State Council promulgated Regulations on Agricultural Census --7 chapters and 42 items --Regulations on Agricultural Census provides legal basis for all census activities

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 2. Main Experiences of Agricultural Census 2.2 Agriculture and rural development as the basic contents of census --Indicators of agricultural census --Indicators of rural development --Indicators related to farmers --The Census covered the rural areas as the scope, and including agricultural production operations in urban areas

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 2. Main Experiences of Agricultural Census 2.3 Various Census Forms: -- households form, -- farm land form, -- village form, -- township form and unit form --Different collection methods

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 2. Main Experiences of Agricultural Census 2.4 Census is organized and coordinated directly by the government –Leading Group of Agricultural Census –Agricultural Census Office

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 2. Main Experiences of Agricultural Census 2.5 Depending on 7 million large number of enumerators and supervisors to fulfill the data collection –The requirements of recruiting enumerators and supervisors –Qualified training for enumerators and supervisors

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 2. Main Experiences of Agricultural Census 2.6 By the OCR technique to accomplishing work of data processing with a quick speed –Comparing with manual entry, the apparent superiority of OCR is fast speed –The second apparent superiority of OCR is high quality

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses  I. Based on the experiences of the first Agricultural Census  1 、 Maintain the coverage and contents of Agriculture + Rural Development + Rural Residents  2 、 Stick to the basic organization model of Government leadership + Public participation  3 Main means of data procession: OCR  4 、 Enhance census data dissemination  5 、 Enhance census data exploitation  6 、 Enhance the match between census and routine surveys

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 2. Main Experiences of Agricultural Census 2.7 Three aspects for post-enumeration survey (PES), comprehensively grasping census quality.  PES on door-to-door interview  PES on farm lands  PES on data processing

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 2. Main Experiences of Agricultural Census 2.8 Comprehensive development and application on census results  Issue of census data  Development of census results  Inviting domestic and international experts to participate in the development of census achievements

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 3. Challenges of Agricultural Census 3.1 The census contents issues  A great number of census indicators  The systematical and integrated issues

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 3. Challenges of Agricultural Census 3.2 A large scale of enumerators caused issues on recruitment, trainings

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 3. Challenges of Agricultural Census 3.3 The coordination issues with the Population Census.  Population Census conducted in the year ending as 0, and Agricultural Census conducted in the year ending as 6.  It caused issues

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 4. Contemplation and Suggestions 4.1 The census contents issues

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 4. Contemplation and Suggestions 4.2 Total enumerators should be cut down  Reducing total sum  Improving training  Relieve tense contradictions on human resources effectively

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 4. Contemplation and Suggestions 4.3 Coordinating relations with Population Census for improving efficiency and reducing costs

Experiences and Challenges: Review on China’s Agricultural Censuses 5. Conclusion

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