South African Census of Commercial Agriculture: Financial and Production Statistics for 2017

The 2017 Agriculture Census is a country-wide census of commercial agriculture, which provides financial performance data of all farmers registered for value-added tax (VAT) and the production performance of all farmers who responded to the census. The census includes variables such as, inter alia, the type of farm ownership, agricultural income and expenditure, production land, agricultural products (i.e. crops and animals), agricultural losses, employees' remuneration, and some demographic information about farm operators.

The original "Census of Commercial Agriculture: Financial and production statistics" was obtained from the Department of Statistics (StatsSA) in an Excel spreadsheet format. The spreadsheet was modified to suit the mapping and analysis needs of the Atlas. Changes made to the original spreadsheet include removing redundant and unexplained columns, renaming the column headers with relevant titles, filling in empty cells and adding spatial reference data (XY coordinates). Qualitty checks were peformed on each column to ensure consistency.

Data are provided at the national and provincial levels for 2007 for most indicators, and at the local municipal, provincial and national levels for a wider variety of indicators at 2017.