A new national agricultural census wil be running from September

Buenos Aires, May 28th. With a budget of US$13 million (AR$321 million), a new agricultural census will be running from September 15th until November 30th by the Argentinean Statistics and Census National Institute (INDEC). “We hope to cover around 190 or 200 million rural hectares (470 to 494 million acres)”, says Roberto Bisang (photo), coordinator of the census in a press conference.

The last agricultural census date from 2002, because the 2008 census was a failure due the confrontation between farmers and Cristina Kirchner’s Government around the implemention of export taxes.

“We will generate key information to local and foreing investors, since they will be able to know what they will find in a certain zone o region, for example, how many cows are there in the Northwest of the country”, explain Mr. Bisang. “It will provide comprehensive data for policymakers, also”, added asked by www.eFarmNewsAr.com.

It is planned that 2,800 censist, mostly local residents linked to farming, take part in the census, wich will start at September 15th and will finalize at November 30th. The cencists will be provided with tablets and digital maps to localize the farm. “It is the main diference from 2002 national census. Now, all data enters in a digital way; this allows to detect inconsistencies and will accelarate the data processing. By the first quarter of 2019 we hope to deliver all the results of the census”, Bisang informed.

The census results a big challenge to Mr. Bisang and his team, since a large portion of commercial crops are produced by no landowners farmers,but “pooles de siembra” or “contratistas”. The first ones are associations between capital funds and agronomist consultants, while the second ones are Ag-machinery owners (basically combines and tractors owners) who rent the farms. For this reason, Bisang’s teams will conduct a test with largest “pooles de siembra” in a few weeks.

For more information (Spanish only) visit: www.cna2018.indec.gob.ar