INS estimates 3.2 million agricultural holdings in General Agricultural Census

The head of the National Statistics Institute (INS), Tudorel Andrei, estimates that Romania could have 3.2 million agricultural holdings after the General Agricultural Census is completed, a number that is lower than the number identified in the previous census, which was 3.6 million agricultural holdings.

"In the last census, the number of holdings was over 3.6 million. We estimate 3.2 million agricultural holdings. For this reason this activity is especially complex. It's one thing to come and visit a reduced number, 600,000, as is the case of France, for example, and another to visit over 3.2 million agricultural holdings," said Tudorel Andrei, in a press conference on the occasion of the launch of the General Agricultural Census - the 2020 round.

He stated that the second reason for which the action is a complex one regards the fact that the partners of the census - the Agriculture Ministry, the INS, the Interior Ministry and the Special Telecommunications Service (STS) - propose for the first time another form of collecting data in the field, namely in electronic format.

"We have here or we had an extraordinarily good collaboration with the colleagues from the World Bank and our colleagues from the Special Telecommunications Service. It's a work that we started two years ago and today we have the first concrete results," said Tudorel Andrei.

The third argument regarding complexity refers to the possibility of continuing this collaboration in the future. He mentioned that he had several discussions and meetings with Agriculture Minister Adrian Oros, and one of the objectives is that this census or the data obtained through this census be obtained annually, at least on the important variables, from administrative sources.

"What we are doing now in this period all the states in the European Union have done or are doing. The variables that are included in this questionnaire are variables common to all member states. According to the European regulation, Romania has the obligation to ensure the provision of data starting from the use of agricultural land after locating the administrator of the agricultural land. We, using also the administrative resources that we have with the Agriculture Ministry, will ensure statistics both in agreement with the European regulations, but also starting from the effective localization of the agricultural field. Thus, it's twice the work that we are conducting in this period," said Tudorel Andrei.