Sri Lanka - Census of Agriculture - 2002 (Operator Basis Data)

Start	End	Cycle

Face-to-face [f2f]

Name	Abbreviation	Affiliation
Department of Census and Statistics	DCS	Ministry of Finance and Planning

Method of Data Collection:
Agriculture in Sri Lanka is carried out in two distinct sectors such as (i). Estate or the plantation sector and (ii). Peasant or the small holding sector. Two methods of data collection were designed which corresponds to these sectors for the easy way of operation in the Census.

1. Estate Sector: (This file excludes Estate Sector)
An agricultural holding of 20 acres or more in extent and under the same unit of management was considered as an “Estate”. In the instances where different parcels of the holding may add up to 20 acres or more if so it was not considered as an “Estate”. Estate should have at least one parcel of which the extent should 20 or more in acres. Similarly, the holdings such as purely paddy lands or chena lands of 20 acres or more were not considered as Estates.

2. Small Holding Sector:
All other holdings, which are not falling into the category of estates, were defined as small holdings. Basically, they are the holdings below 20 acres in extent.

The trained Enumerators have visited every Census unit in order of the list frame (F1) that was prepared at the Census of Population 2001 namely: housing unit, Institution, collective living quarters, and non-housing unit in the country and screened out the agricultural operators through a schedule known as AC1. They have been instructed to have personal interviews with operators and to collect the information. In respect of the Estate sector, the information was collected through mail questionnaires by sending the specific questionnaire to each and every operator/Superintendent according to the inventory of Estates prepared prior to Census proper.