Northern Ireland Farm Census by District Electoral Area

Farm Census District Electoral Area 2015 covers all farm businesses in Northern Ireland. Data is collected via survey and supplemented with administrative data from the Animal and Public Health Information System (APHIS). The statistics, collected since 1847, provide information on farm counts, land use, livestock populations, and labor.

Use Cases

• Analyzing farm size distribution based on the number of v.small/small/medium/large farms.
• Mapping livestock density (cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry) across District Electoral Areas.
• Assessing agricultural labor force composition using counts of farmers, self-employed, spouses, and other workers.
• Comparing land use (crops vs. grass) between Less Favourable Area (LFA) and Non-LFA farms.
• Creating dashboards for visualizing regional farming statistics over time.

Strengths

• Covers all farm businesses in Northern Ireland, suggesting a complete enumeration.
• Combines direct survey data with administrative data from APHIS, likely improving accuracy.
• Historical data is available from 1847, providing a long-term perspective.
• Used by a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders, indicating established utility.

Limitations

• Specific column names and data formats are not detailed in the provided metadata.
• Conflicting metadata: one source lists a last updated date of 2026-04-15 (a future date), while others list none, casting doubt on freshness.
• The dataset's spatial granularity (District Electoral Area) is mentioned in tags but not explicitly described in the main text.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service (UK), Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) Northern Ireland.

Collection Method

Collected directly from farm businesses through a survey and supplemented with administrative data from the Animal and Public Health Information System (APHIS).

Time Range

Data collection began in 1847. The specific dataset version is for 2015.

Freshness

2026-04-15 14:22:16.178529

Geography

Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, at the District Electoral Area (DEA) level.