Last updated April 2010
The new EDINA agcensus service provides online access to grid-square Agricultural Census data for England, Scotland, and Wales.
Users can visualise or download data for use in other software packages, such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS) or spreadsheets, such as Excel.
To use the EDINA agcensus service you need a web browser that supports tables and forms.
EDINA services are normally available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Any planned service breaks will be announced via the EDINA web site.
For more information contact:
Allows you download data as winzipped ASCII- delimited Comma Separated Values.
Displays the data you select in a printable and downloadable GIF file.
To begin selecting your data, click on either of the options.
The data selection process is the same for both the Download and Map options. As you make your selections, they will be listed on the right side of the screen.
If at any time you need to change a selection, simply return to that section using the links at the top of the page.
Choose Scotland, England and/or Wales* or Great Britain as the location for the data.
*Separate agricultural census data for England and Wales was only available as of 1999.
Choose the year of interest from the list of those available for your selected area.
The coverage of the agricultural census is divided into a number of groups. Selecting a group will take you to the available items for that group.
Each of the Census items relates to a specific question posed within the census questionnaire.
For download purposes: Data from more than one census group can be added to your selection by clicking Add Item+. Items can be added individually or collectively by holding down the <ctrl> key and clicking on the desired items.
For visualisation purposes: Only one census item can be selected at a time. To view the distribution maps for more than one census item or for the same item for a different year, save the maps as GIF images and print hard copies.
Select the desired size for the grid squares of your map (i.e; 2km, 5km, 10km). The resolution may be influenced by the area of interest or by the resolution of complementary data.
Prior to download or visualisation, the chosen criteria will be summarised for possible amendment.
The Confirm screen of the download option will have a Download button. Click it to compile the selected data.
After the data is compiled, there will be a Download Data link on the screen. Click on the 'Download Data' button to download the data in winzipped ASCII - delimited Comma Separated Values (CSV).
After the process of selecting data, click on the Visualise button to view the distribution map of the chosen item.
To view an image of the map suitable for *downloading as a GIF file, click on Output Image, to print the map, click on Print Image and to download the data for the selected item, click Download Data.
*to download the image, right click on the image and save as a GIF file.To change the intervals for the banding on a map, click on Change Banding on the map page. If you want to use less than six bandings, delete the values from those bands that you do not wish to use (leaving the lower boxes blank). Default Bandings will revert back to the bandings being automatically generated for each map.
The Agricultural Census is conducted in June each year by the government departments dealing with Agriculture and Rural Affairs for Scotland, England, and Wales (i.e. SEERAD, DEFRA and the Welsh Assembly Government Department for Environment, Planning and Countryside). Each farmer declares the agricultural activity on the land via a postal questionnaire. The respective government departments collect the 150 items of data and publish information relating to farm holdings for recognised geographies.
Edinburgh University Data Library has developed algorithms which convert the data for recognised geographies, obtained from the government departments, into grid square estimates. The key to transforming the raw data into grid square data is the definition of each geography (e.g. parish, in the case of Scotland) in terms of 1km squares. This Framework is used in conjunction with a 7-fold classification of the land-use of the same 1km grid squares, the Landuse Framework. Agricultural Census items are distributed over those 1km grid squares with the land use category suitable for the census item in question.
The resultant grid square estimates of production are available in ASCII delimited format at various resolutions from as far back as 1969 for the three UK territories.
Prior to 1998 data for England and Wales was provided by DEFRA. Farmers from both territories completed the same questionnaire. Since 1998 Welsh farmers complete a questionnaire supplied by the Welsh Assembly Government Department for Environment, Planning and Countryside. Farmers in Scotland complete a questionnaire as supplied by SEERAD. Due to each government department having responsibility for their respective questionnaire there is not complete comparability over the three territories with regard to questions asked. Similarly, due to changes in agricultural policy the content of the questionnaires within the three territories changes over time. For example certain census items have been aggregated over time for confidentiality purposes
The geography of Northern Ireland is based on the Irish National Grid but this data is not currently available via agcensus. Inclusion of data from Northern Ireland will be investigated as the service develops.
The units of measurement of census items from the Agricultural Census data are in metric units: areas are expressed in hectares, with the exception of glasshouse areas which are expressed in square metres; weights are expressed in tonnes. Data from the census prior to 1976 have been converted from imperial units given on the census form to metric units. For further information please refer to the questionnaire for the census year of interest.
It is good practice to use the Logout button when you have finished the session. You will be automatically logged out after a period of non-use of the interface.
This adds the online help text to the foot of the screen. Once selected the help text remains active for all screens until unselected.
Answers to frequently asked questions can be found by clicking FAQs at the top of the agcensus site.