Agricultural census in Tanahun

Agriculture census will be conducted in Tanahu from 6 to 19 April. The agricultural census is being conducted with the objective of collecting details related to the land used by the farmers, planted crops, livestock and environmental impact on agriculture.

 Chief of the office, Nawaraj Pokhrel, informed that the census is being carried out to help the planners and policy makers by meeting the need of data required for formulating local, district, state and national level plans and policy formulation, monitoring and evaluation for agricultural development.

 63 enumerators will be mobilized in Tanahu for agricultural census. He also informed that 16 supervisors and one agricultural census officer will be mobilized. The work of data collection in agricultural census will be carried out in two phases within the same time frame. 

 In the first phase, the enumerators will reach the doorsteps of each person in the enumeration area and list the farming families who have met the minimum criteria, said Pokhrel. In the second phase, the farmer family selected by the supervisor through the definite statistical selection method will be reached and the details related to the land and livestock rearing, other forms of farming, environment and other various issues will be collected by the enumerator through the farmer family questionnaire form.

 In the second phase, the supervisors will collect the details related to the geographical location and socio-economic condition of the selected area through the ward level community questionnaire, the infrastructure and services in the area and the development programs run in that area.

 During the same period, the institutional agricultural practices in the district will be fully enumerated by the supervisors and the on-site data collection by the enumerators and supervisors will be supervised at different stages from the center, state and district level, said Pokhrel.

 About four thousand 175 farming families will be selected from 167 counting areas at all local levels of the district. For that, 20 counting areas have been identified in Bhanu, 18 in Vyas, 16 in Myagdi and 18 in Shuklagandaki. Similarly, 17 counting areas have been identified in Bhimad, 15 in Ghiring, 18 in Rising, 16 in Devghat, 15 in Bandipur and 14 in Aabukhaireni.

 The agricultural census will include agricultural work done by households, institutional farming work (government, semi-government, cooperative, business), and activities related to community agriculture. Data collection of agricultural work done by households will be based on selection method.

 Statistics on the basis of land used by farmers, use of land, area of ​​cultivated land, details of production and irrigation of main crops, use of agricultural inputs and tools, number of livestock and food, manpower involved in agricultural work, status of ownership of agricultural land by gender, et cetera will be collected.

 Data will be collected on various topics such as agro-forestry, agricultural loans, insurance, grants, impact of climate change on agricultural work, use of greenhouse methods, soil testing, access to agricultural markets, agricultural residues and waste management.

 Chief District Officer Bishwaprakash Aryal said that the agricultural census should be made effective and reliable. Nepali Congress Tanahu Vice President Dev Kumar Shrestha stressed on the need to make the monitoring of the enumerators effective.