Introduction
Agriculture Census Organization (ACO) was established in 1958 as an attached department of the then Ministry of Agriculture under the legal cover of Agriculture Census Act 1958. Immediately after its inception, ACO conducted Agriculture Census of 1960 to fulfill national and international requirements of data on agriculture. Later on, this Organization conducted a survey-cum-census under the recommendation of the Farm Mechanization Committee, Government of Pakistan, in 1968 and an Agriculture Census in 1972 which was actually due in 1970. Two years delay in the conduct of Agriculturel Census was on account of disturbed political environment in the country and war with India. Subsequently, ACO conducted Livestock Census in 1976 to provide data on livestock and related parameters as the last assignment carried out under Ministry of Agriculture.
Statistics Division was created with the objective of bringing all the data generating system at federal level under one umbrella. This Organization was resultantly transferred to newly established Statistics Division in 1978 as an attached entity. Since then, ACO had conducted four Agriculture Censuses each in the years of 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 and three Livestock Censuses each in the years of 1986, 1996, 2006 and four Agriculture Machinery Censuses each in the years of 1974, 1984, 1994, 2004 till to-date. In addition, eight Mouza (Village) Censuses each in the years of 1970, 1979, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008 had been conducted by ACO in the overall statistical frame work under Statistics Division.
This Organization has been merged with the newly established Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) since 23rd December, 2011 as its Agriculture Census Wing (ACW).
Functions of Agriculture Census Wing
Agriculture Census Wing (ACW) is responsible for planning, execution and publication of data on the censuses / surveys relating to agriculture on decennial basis, namely:
- Agriculture Census during the years ending with digit “zero”.
- Agriculture Machinery Census during the years ending with digit “four”.
- Livestock Census during the years ending with digit “six” along with a few surveys.
- Mouza (Village) Census during the years ending with digit “eight”.
The data collected through the above mentioned censuses are presented in country and provincial reports. The country reports present data on country and provincial levels while the provincial reports present data for the province concerned and for its all the districts.