DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS IN THE KINGDOM OF YUGOSLAVIA

The aim of this paper is to explore the development of agricultural statistics in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1918-1941 period. Collecting statistical data on agriculture was a duty of the Ministry of Agriculture. The paper reveals how the Ministry performed this job, which data were collected and in which publications these data were published. The development of agricultural statistics has been analysed by applying historical method. Comparison with agricultural statistics of certain European countries has been made by applying comparative method. It has been concluded that agricultural statistics in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia recorded significant improvements during the interwar period: all relevant data were collected, international standards were met, and publications were modernized. As for the manner of conducting statistical research and presentation of statistical data, they were in the spirit of the time and responded to the achieved level of development of statistics in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.


Introduction
In the Kingdom of Serbia, before World War I, statistical data on agriculture had been collected and sorted by the Administration of Government Statistics of the Kingdom of Serbia. Those data were published in publications named The Census of Cultivated After the Introduction, the methods applied in the research and the data sources are presented in Part two of the paper. The organization of statistical service in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the interwar period is explained in Part three of the paper. This issue is important for explaining the statistical coverage of areas of economic and social life in general and agriculture in particular. In Part four of the paper the work of the Ministry of Agriculture in collecting data on agriculture is described, sources of information on agriculture are presented, the way in which data were collected is described and the content of data collected is analysed. In the fifth part of the paper we point to the way in which agriculture had been presented in the statistical publications of the time and we give a brief overview of these publications. At the end, conclusions are drawn about the level of development of agricultural statistics in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and pointed to the future directions in the study of historical development of agricultural statistics.

Scientific methods and data sources in agricultural statistics
The bases for the researches of agriculture as well as agro-industry as sectors of national economy have always been time series of relevant macroeconomic indicators (Savić, Bošković, Mićić, 2016). Also, comparative studies on agricultural and agro-industrial development of different countries have always been firmly founded on relevant data of national statistical services (Jevtić, 1996). The countries with long and rich agricultural tradition such as, for example, the United States of America, Great Britain, Scotland and Hungary have thoroughly researched the history of their agricultural statistics. This subject is mainly on the agenda of the Government statistical institutions. Thus the history of agricultural census in USA could be, for example, found in the works of the U.S. Department of Commerce (see U.S. Department of Commerce, 1992) as well as on the internet site of the United States Department of Agriculture which has its own National Agricultural Statistics Service. Also, there is a briefing paper on the beginnings of agricultural statistics prepared for The House of Commons of Great Britain (Zayed, 2016). Laszka (2015) in his work on the development of agricultural statistics says that "...agricultural statistics have always been in the forefront of developments of Hungarian statistics." Finally, the internet site of the Government of Scotland, through the section on statistics, leads to Historical Agricultural Publications dating from the time even before World War I. Similarly, in other countries mentioned the time series of agriculture date back to the mid-19th century, when the development of agricultural statistics ever started. From sources we learn that after the population census, data on agriculture were the first to be systematically collected and written down (Korunić, 2012). In the Kingdom of Serbia, the collection and publication of statistical data on agriculture began in the late 19th century and then continued in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. There was not, therefore, much lagging behind Europe. Even the quality of statistical publications was at the European level compared, for example, with Report on the Acreage and Production of Crops and Number of Live Stock in Scotland published in 1929 by the Department of Agriculture for Scotland.
A paper dealing with the history and development of national statistics and its particular areas has reasonably called for the application of historical method and significant research in libraries and archives (Pejanović, 2009  In addition to the Government Statistics Directorate (later General Government Statistics), statistical data were also collected by the ministries. Government Statistics Directorate had certain authority in coordination, but the statistical service at ministerial level functioned largely independently. Departmental statistical organization had its advantages. In addition to saving money it allowed the ministries to carry out easily and efficiently statistical research in their fields. Benefits of the concentration of statistical activities came to the effect later, during developing and standardizing the methodology. With the establishment of new administrative organization of the State in 1929, statistical services were organized at the level of Banovinas (Stanković, 1981). However, despite the existence of Banovina offices, most of the statistical surveys were still conducted by ministries. This method of organization of national statistics had been maintained until the beginning of the World War II. The tasks of the Ministry were: to promote all branches of agriculture and cattle breeding, to expand agricultural knowledge in the population by establishing primary, secondary and higher agricultural schools and institutes, to ensure the preservation of the health of livestock and transport of livestock, to provide maintenance, improvement and utilization of water and water flows, to collect and provide the public with statistical data on agriculture and to monitor the development of agriculture and agricultural achievements abroad.
Who were the beneficiaries of the collected data and to what purposes these data were collected? "The Ministry of Agriculture and Water could not be without necessary data on cultivated land, the sowing and harvest, and the state of fruit and vineyard growing. Therefore, it considers necessary to obtain and arrange the statistical data, in order to get a picture about the state of our annual agricultural production." In addition ... "Only half of the State has a survey of individual land owners ... Ahead of us is the revision of the cadastre in areas that had been measured and the execution of cadastre in areas that so far have not been measured" (Ministarstvo poljoprivrede i voda Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, 1922). This was partly realized by agricultural census in 1931 (Gnjatović, 2010a;Gnjatović, 2010b).
In April 1920, the Decree on the Organization of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water of 8 July 1919 became the subject to amendments. Within these amendments, the Department for Agricultural Statistics had been founded within the Ministry if Agriculture with the task of collecting, sorting and publishing the statistical data on seeded land and annual agricultural production.

The scope of agricultural statistics
The work in the Department of Agricultural Statistics started in the second half of 1920, when it was ordered to all relevant authorities to collect the necessary data, present P 2017 (64) 2 (619-637) them on temporary forms and submit them to the Ministry. The data collected for the year 1920 were not published because they were incomplete -not all the territories of the new, enlarged State were included. Collected data had been checked, updated and According to the Rules for the agricultural statistics, information on agriculture for the State as a whole were to be prepared by the Department of Agricultural Statistics while information on agriculture for the provincial territories were to be provided by provincial administrations in Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Ljubljana and Split. "Data on Agricultural Statistics are collected by all state and self-governing authorities in the country in line with their official duties. Municipal courts, municipal (territorial) governments, administrations of towns and cities, are required to appoint the officials to gather these data every year. In addition to these official bodies, data collection is also done with the help of professionals and experienced farmers, knowledgeable about the agricultural conditions of their regions. The selection of these persons is carried out by the said authorities themselves among their officials, councillors and farmers as well as among the other people capable of such work" (Ministarstvo poljoprivrede i voda Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, 1922). The following data were collected: the land structure, cultivated and sown land, the harvested crops of all important cultures of agricultural production, the number of fruit trees, the olive groves and vineyards and the areas devastated by natural disasters or pests.
Besides regular data collection, two agricultural censuses were conducted. The first one was the livestock census carried out on 31 January 1921 along with the population census on the basis of Decree on the population census and domestic cattle on 31 December 1920 adopted by Ministerial Council on 31 March 1920. However, due to great difficulties, the census could not be performed before 1921. and French) with lots of data and tables. The publication presented data on domestic livestock by provinces, counties, districts and municipalities; the feathered livestock and beehives by provinces, counties and districts, and a summary of livestock, poultry and beehives by provinces, counties and districts. In addition to this publication, the data gathered by the census were presented in the Statistical Yearbook of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia for 1929. Tables in this Yearbook presented domestic livestock by Banovinas (Annex 2), then the number of livestock per 100 inhabitants and per 1 km 2 , the percentages of livestock by species and by Banovinas, as well as died and killed livestock and poultry and data on beekeeping and poultry breeding.
After this census, a large agricultural census was planned, which would be carried out within the framework of the population census, which would include the farms as well as the entire agricultural production. "After the war, in our Kingdom, an agricultural census has not been carried out yet, so the acreage (territoire agricole) has not been established yet, which makes it very difficult to work. In the last ten years, from 1920 to 1929, our agricultural statistics had to cope with great difficulties in the collection of data on the farmland. Nevertheless, according to the decision of the International Institute of Agriculture in Rome, whose member is our Kingdom, agricultural census is going to be carried out in 1930 in almost all European countries, and our country has also agreed in principle to carry out such census" (Ministarstvo poljoprivrede Kraljevine Jugoslavije, 1930).
The population and agriculture census was a major event. Statistical Service of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had just "stood on its feet" in the first years after the War, when it had to perform so difficult and complex task, such as agricultural census. By comparison, some more developed and richer European countries did not dare to organize such census. France conducted its first agricultural census only in 1955, while in the interwar period information on agriculture were collected sporadically and were based on estimates rather than on direct data collection (Carré, Dubois, Malinvaud, 1975). On the other hand, in some countries which have also a long agricultural tradition, agricultural censuses were conducted already in the 19th century. In the United Kingdom, the first agricultural census was conducted in 1851 and since then, it has been performed every year and the types of data collected on the number of livestock and the land sown with agricultural crops are nowadays more or less the same (Mills, 1999 Due to objective circumstances the Census data processing was carried out slowly. Agricultural Census data were published gradually as they arrived. Main results of the Census of agricultural households were published in the Statistical Yearbook for 1936 and data on livestock (cattle breeding, poultry farming, beekeeping and sericulture) in the Statistical Yearbook for 1934/35. In addition to data on the number and size of farms according to their size, legal address of their processing and the types of agricultural culture, the data on the size of the vineyards and the number of fruit trees on farms could be found in the Statistical Yearbook for 1936. Finally, information on the number and size of farms by districts appeared in the Statistical Yearbook for 1937.

Agriculture in statistical publications in the interwar period
The most important publication of national statistics of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was the Statistical Yearbook. From 1929 until the beginning of the World War II, ten Statistical Yearbooks of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia were issued, one for each year, except for two biannual issues (Volume VI, for 1934-1935 and Volume IX for 1938-1939). The first Statistical Yearbook for 1929 was published in 1932. Before that, in 1926, the Yearbook of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Godišnjak Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, 1926) was published, containing statistical data on most economic activities for the period from 1920 to 1924 and for certain activities, such as transport and mining also data for 1919 and 1925. The Yearbook of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was of somewhat different character from the Statistical Yearbook of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that followed. In addition to statistical data, it was well equipped with photographs and it contained a large number of articles on various topics on economic, social and cultural life whose authors were prominent people and well-known experts of the time.
When it comes to agriculture, it is worth mentioning an authentic and lively overview of the state of this branch of the economy in the articles written by Ljudevit Prohaska and Milorad Nedeljković, who dedicated six articles to agriculture on as many as 57 pages of the Yearbook. The titles of these articles are: Agrarian Reform in the Kingdom of SCS, Farming, Cattle Breeding, Viticulture and Fruit Growing, Agricultural Education and Development of Cooperatives in the Kingdom SCS. In these articles, tables with statistical data for agriculture for 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923 and 1924 (agricultural land, seeded land, the average yield, situation in livestock, production of wine, fruit growing conditions, export of and import of fruit, the total yield and many others) had been presented. Also, the state of certain fields of agriculture had been described, an analysis of the achieved level of development had been made and measures for the improvement of agricultural production had been suggested. In the Statistical Yearbook, agriculture had always been presented at the beginning of the chapter devoted to the economy. That was in line with the fact that three thirds of rural population of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia lived exclusively from agriculture, and that in the overall interwar period, around 55 percent of national income had been created in agriculture and forestry (Gnjatović, Aleksić, 2011). The section devoted to agriculture contained time series for crop farming, cattle breeding, poultry farming, bee-keeping and sericulture, forestry, maritime fishing and land improvement. and it was published until 1940, when its last issue appeared with data for 1939. This was even more extensive publication with more than 180 pages, also bilingual, and contained also data on exports and imports of agricultural products, taken from the official publication Statistics of Foreign Trade of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia issued by the Ministry of Finance. Over time, agricultural statistics had been enriched with all the new data. Collecting data on the yield of honey and wax was introduced starting in 1933, for soybean, sunflower, cherries, apricots, peaches, quinces, almonds, lemons and oranges -from 1934; vetches for hay, the yield of the grapes, olive yield, especially seed yield and fiber, cottonseed -from 1935. In time, the publication required adding new tables and data processing. For example, on Banovina level, the incidence of certain types of livestock and poultry and the percentage distribution of individual crops, fallows, meadows, pasture and reeds had been presented.
Regarding data collection, at the beginning of the publication, in the Preliminary Remarks it was explained that the data on arable land, crop yield, the number of cattle, poultry and beehives were determined based on estimates of the municipal statistical authorities. Those estimates were made not only by municipal clerks but also by private individuals from amongst the prominent farmers. Data for municipalities were submitted to the relevant District Office and after being inspected and sorted, sent to the Department of Agriculture of relevant Banovina. There, the data from all municipalities were gathered and then submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture, where the final inspection and sorting took place (Kraljevina Jugoslavija Ministarstvo poljoprivrede, 1933).

Conclusion
The last Statistical Yearbook of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was published in 1941 with data for the year 1940. Once again, the events of the war ravaged Yugoslavia. However, not everything was gone by then achieved. The development of the national statistical service continued after the Second World War with the establishment of the Government Statistical Office of the Democratic Federative Yugoslavia in 1944. Following the example of its organization before the War, statistical services developed within individual ministries, inheriting the achievements of pre-War statistics and knowledge of the experts who survived.
The foundations of modern national statistics were made through the development of statistical services of Serbia and Yugoslavia. The level of development of agricultural statistics in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was best evidenced by the number and quality of relevant publications. Their characteristics were: the regularity of their publishing, quality of printing and comprehensiveness of data. The quality of these publications did not lag much behind the quality of corresponding publications of developed European countries of that time. As for the manner of conducting statistical surveys, it depended on concrete objective possibilities. Statisticians had to cope often with the lack of money, illiteracy of rural population and lack of staff. Nevertheless, statistical surveys were in the spirit of the time and corresponded to the achieved level of the development of statistics in the region.
Future researches of agricultural statistics should look deeper in the past, to its very beginning in the Kingdom of Serbia having in mind that such researches have not been done yet. Detailed comparisons with the operations of national statistical services of other European countries are also needed in order to assess properly the overall development of national agricultural statistics.

Annex 4
The cultivated land, production of serials and orchards the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the period from 1925 to 1935.