Russia’s Federal Statistics Service head Vladimir Sokolin
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Statistics Service Re-Evaluates Agriculture
Preliminary results of the agricultural census of 2006 persuaded Russia’s Federal Statistics Service of the need to adjust past years' data on movement of agricultural production and, therefore the GDP of the country. For the first time, the census revealed material reduction in land, where the Russians are ready to cultivate anything. The overall economic census should be carried out in the nearest years, the statistics authority concluded.
Russia’s Federal Statistics Service head Vladimir Sokolin presented to government’s commission yesterday preliminary results of 2006 agricultural census, including the data on private plots. As it turned out, the real state of affairs materially differs from the general idea of statistics authority; in certain indicators, the deviation reaches 30 percent. The cattle population, for instance, proved 3.4 percent above the current statistics, while pig population exceeded today’s data by 12 percent and there are 7 percent more sheep and goats than expected.
”This serious moment forces us to reconsider agricultural indicators of past years,” Sokolin pointed out. “In the government’s commission, they have adequately taken the results and got convinced once again that holding periodic censuses is a matter of need.”
The previous agricultural census in Russia was carried out in 1920. The United States holds it each five years and Poland has annual censuses of agriculture.
One of the achievements of the recent census is the data about private plots. As it turned out there are 22.76 million such plots in today’s Russia, while the area of 40 percent of them is less than 0.1 hectares. “For some vegetables, potatoes, for instance, these 23 million private plots account for over 90 percent of the overall production. But in area, it is less than 10 percent of all farming land tilled in the country,” Sokolin said.
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All the Article in Russian as of June 21, 2007
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