Defining long-run agricultural trends: A compilation of and concordance for the statistics gathered by the June Farm Census

The Agricultural Census, also known as the June Farm Census was first taken on 25th June 1866 following earlier attempts made to gather systematic data on agricultural production in 1795, 1798, 1801 and 1803. It took some years to achieve comprehensive coverage, but from 1866 onwards the June Farm Census has annually gathered statistics farm by farm on the area of each crop and the number of farm animals as well as the amounts of land used under different forms of tenure and numbers of workers of different kinds in some years. The objective of this project was to make the June Agricultural Census data a more useable resource for researchers to use and interpret by collating the information that has already been computerised, and by producing a 'concordance', which would provide information to researchers on what information is available at different times. The project focuses on data before 1969. Computerised farm level data after this date are held by Defra.