A census of agriculture is a statistical operation for collecting, processing and disseminating data on the structure of agriculture, covering the whole or a significant part of the country.

Realizing the importance of statistics on agriculture, the International Institute of Agriculture conducted the first Programme for the World Census of Agriculture (WCA) in 1930. Beginning with 1950, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has been preparing and advocating decennial World Programme for the Census of Agriculture (WCA). Under the leadership of FAO, country participation in the WCA programme has been increased over time. The present round of the Census programme (WCA 2020) covers agricultural censuses to be carried out by countries between 2016 to 2025.

Member countries provide the reports of their agricultural censuses to the FAO Statistics Division. At the end of each round of the WCA, FAO Statistics Division publishes consolidated information on structure of agriculture, for various countries, in the form of Reports.

More information about the WCA programme is available at

http://www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-home/en/