How agriculture is measured, tested and forecast: field experiments, crop-cutting surveys, statistical genetics, time series and the computing behind them.
Agricultural Statistics & Data Science covers the degrees that teach statistics as agriculture uses it: designing and analysing field and animal experiments, running crop-cutting and agricultural surveys, statistical genetics for breeders, forecasting, and the computing that ties them together. Laisha built it from ICAR's Statistical Sciences entrance syllabi (AIEEA-PG Group 07; AICE-JRF/SRF subjects 68 Agricultural Statistics, 69 Bioinformatics and 70 Computer Application), the GATE Statistics and Data Science papers, IIT JAM Mathematical Statistics, statistical-service recruitment and the accreditation routes of statistical societies. Laisha's questions are original practice written to those syllabi and patterns; they are not past papers. Business statistics and econometrics are taught in the Agribusiness track and introductory biostatistics in the Veterinary track; this track refers to them and goes deeper.
Undergraduate statistics and the bridge into a statistics master's: the mathematics a statistician cannot work without, first-course statistical methods as agricultural graduates meet them, the agriculture a statistician must understand to design a trial or a survey, and programming and computer fundamentals.
First year of the master's: probability, distributions, inference, linear models, multivariate and categorical methods and Bayesian thinking, to the depth of ICAR AICE-JRF Agricultural Statistics Units 1-2, GATE Statistics, IIT JAM MS and the Indian Statistical Service papers.
The heart of agricultural statistics since Fisher at Rothamsted: field-plot technique, the classical designs, factorials and confounding, incomplete blocks, response surfaces, multi-location trials, mixed models and the PhD-level theory of optimal and specialised designs.
How a country knows how much it grew: sampling theory from simple random to unequal-probability and model-based methods, crop-cutting experiments and yield estimation, the agricultural statistics system and census, survey operations, demography and economic statistics.
Statistics for breeders and biologists: population and quantitative genetics, biometrical techniques of plant and animal breeding, statistical genomics and bioinformatics (the third sub-subject of the ICAR group), bioassay and survival analysis, and statistical ecology.
Second-year and PhD work on data in time and on decisions: time-series analysis, crop and weather-based forecasting and growth models, causal inference and efficiency analysis for programme evaluation, optimisation, actuarial methods for crop insurance and statistical quality control.
The computing and practice layer that every role in the ladder uses: simulation and resampling, statistical software and reproducible work, machine learning, spatial statistics and remote sensing, agricultural data systems, and statistical consulting and research methodology.
Built in October 2026. The ICAR rows were read in the 2026 AIEEA-PG bulletin and ICAR's syllabus PDFs; GATE ST and DA from the 2026 syllabi; IIT JAM MS from the JAM 2026 pattern page; professional-body and programme rows from their own pages. The session's web-search quota was exhausted, and asrb.org.in, upsc.gov.in, the RBI portal, ISI and several national statistical offices could not be opened, so those rows are built from Laisha's knowledge and marked 'unverified' with the body's home page as the link. No board publishes question counts per topic, so the high-yield list is drawn from which topics are explicit units in several exams' syllabi, not from counting past papers.
| UN Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP) training unverified United Nations ESCAP - SIAP · professional | Courses and e-learning for national statistical office staff; certificates on completion. | source |
| Statistical Society of Australia accreditation (GStat, AStat) unverified Statistical Society of Australia · professional | Accreditation by application against assessment criteria (qualifications and experience); not a written exam. | source |
| Australian Bureau of Statistics graduate and statistician recruitment unverified Australian Bureau of Statistics · civil-service | Online application, assessments and interviews (reported). | source |
| BCS examination - Statistical cadre unverified Bangladesh Public Service Commission · civil-service | Preliminary 200 marks MCQ; written general and cadre subjects; viva. | source |
| ESALQ-USP Graduate Programme in Statistics and Agronomic Experimentation (PPGEEA) University of Sao Paulo, Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture · pg | Selection process with examinations and oral assessment ('exames e arguicoes'), affirmative-action places and English proficiency. | source |
| IBGE public selection (statistics and census positions) unverified Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) with an exam organiser · civil-service | Objective (and for some posts discursive) written exams in Portuguese, statistics, and specific knowledge (reported). | source |
| Statistical Society of Canada accreditation (A.Stat. and P.Stat.) Statistical Society of Canada · professional | Accreditation by application (education, experience, ethics), with accredited courses counting towards A.Stat.; not a written exam. | source |
| Statistics Canada recruitment of mathematical statisticians unverified Statistics Canada · civil-service | Recruitment campaigns with written tests and interviews (reported). | source |
| China national postgraduate entrance exam - Statistics (0714) and Applied Statistics master's (432) unverified Ministry of Education / China Higher Education Student Information (CHSI) with universities · pg | National unified exam: politics, English, mathematics (for academic statistics) and a specialised paper; applied-statistics master's uses the 432 Statistics paper (reported). | source |
| China statistics professional and technical qualification (junior and intermediate statistician) unverified National Bureau of Statistics with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security · professional | National written exam held annually (reported). | source |
| European Master in Official Statistics (EMOS) label unverified Eurostat and the European Statistical System · pg | Not an exam: a quality label for master's programmes meeting the EMOS curriculum in official statistics. | source |
| Common entrance exams of the African statistical schools (ISE / AS / ITS) unverified ENSEA Abidjan, ISSEA Yaounde and ENSAE Dakar with ENSAE Paris · pg | Common written competitive exams for statistician-economist engineer (ISE), statistics analyst and statistical technician streams, held in many African countries (reported). | source |
| FAO eLearning Academy - agricultural statistics courses unverified Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN · professional | Free self-paced online courses with certificates. | source |
| ICAR AIEEA-PG - Group 07 Statistical Sciences (Master's admission and PG scholarship) National Testing Agency for ICAR · pg | Computer-based test, 120 minutes, single paper of 120 MCQs, +4 / -1, English. 2026 exam on 4 July 2026. Fills ICAR's all-India quota of Master's seats at agricultural universities. | source |
| ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF - Agricultural Statistics, Computer Application, Bioinformatics (PhD admission and fellowship) National Testing Agency for ICAR · phd | Computer-based test, 2 hours, 120 MCQs, +4 / -1 (Part A general, Part B core group, Part C subject). 2026 exam held with AIEEA-PG in July 2026. | source |
| ASRB NET - Agricultural Statistics (and Computer Application / Bioinformatics) unverified Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ICAR) · professional | NET: one objective paper of about 150 questions, 2 hours, negative marking, online, Master's level (pattern as reported for other disciplines). | source |
| ASRB Agricultural Research Service (ARS) - Agricultural Statistics scientist unverified Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board (ICAR) · civil-service | Combined NET/ARS/SMS/STO recruitment: preliminary (objective), mains (descriptive, discipline paper) and interview for ARS. | source |
| Indian Statistical Service Examination (with Indian Economic Service) unverified Union Public Service Commission · civil-service | Written examination of six papers and a viva voce. Reported scheme: General English 100, General Studies 100, Statistics I and II (objective, 200 each), Statistics III and IV (descriptive, 200 each); viva 200. | source |
| SSC Combined Graduate Level - Junior Statistical Officer / Statistical Investigator unverified Staff Selection Commission · civil-service | Multi-tier computer-based exam; candidates for Junior Statistical Officer and Statistical Investigator posts take an additional statistics paper. | source |
| RBI Grade B (DSIM) - Department of Statistics and Information Management unverified Reserve Bank of India Services Board · civil-service | Phase I objective screening, Phase II papers in statistics and English, and an interview (reported). | source |
| State statistical services: Statistical Officer / Assistant Statistical Officer (State PSCs and selection boards) unverified State Public Service Commissions and Subordinate Service Selection Boards · civil-service | Varies by state: usually an objective screening test in statistics and general studies, some with a descriptive paper and interview. | source |
| GATE - Statistics (ST) IITs and IISc on rotation (2026: IIT Guwahati) · pg | Computer-based, 3 hours, 100 marks (15 General Aptitude + 85 subject). MCQ, MSQ and NAT; negative marking on MCQ only; on-screen virtual calculator. | source |
| GATE - Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DA) IITs and IISc on rotation (2026: IIT Guwahati) · pg | Computer-based, 3 hours, 100 marks (15 General Aptitude + 85 subject). MCQ, MSQ and NAT; negative marking on MCQ only. | source |
| IIT JAM - Mathematical Statistics (MS) IITs (JAM 2026 organised by IIT Bombay) · pg | Computer-based, 3 hours, 60 questions, 100 marks, English. Section A 30 MCQs (10 x 1 mark, 20 x 2 marks); Section B 10 MSQs (2 marks, no negative or partial marking); Section C 20 NAT (10 x 1, 10 x 2, no negative). MCQ wrong answers lose 1/3 or 2/3 mark. | source |
| Indian Statistical Institute admission tests (BStat, MStat, JRF in Statistics) unverified Indian Statistical Institute · pg | Written tests in two parts: an objective mathematics/statistics test and a descriptive subject test, followed by interview for some programmes (reported). JRF selection by written test and interview. | source |
| CSIR-UGC NET - Mathematical Sciences (statistics option) unverified National Testing Agency for CSIR · phd | Computer-based, 3 hours, Parts A (general aptitude), B and C (subject); statisticians answer from the statistics unit. | source |
| CUET-PG - Statistics unverified National Testing Agency · pg | Computer-based MCQ test used by central and participating universities for MSc Statistics admission. | source |
| ICAR-IASRI MSc and PhD (Agricultural Statistics, Computer Application, Bioinformatics) unverified ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute with the IARI Graduate School · pg | Admission through ICAR AIEEA-PG (Master's) and AICE-JRF/SRF (PhD) plus the Graduate School's own process. | source |
| Politeknik Statistika STIS admission (SPMB) unverified Politeknik Statistika STIS / BPS-Statistics Indonesia · entrance | Multi-stage selection reported to include an academic test (mathematics), psychological and health tests and interview; graduates are bound to serve in BPS. | source |
| Japan Statistical Society Certificate (Toukei Kentei) Japan Statistical Society (certificate operated with the Japan Statistical Association) · professional | Graded certificate exams; the graded levels are mostly computer-based. | source |
| Statistics Officer (Lok Sewa) - Nepal Statistics Service unverified Public Service Commission Nepal · civil-service | Written papers (general and service-specific statistics) and interview (reported). | source |
| Statistical Officer recruitment (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics) unverified Federal Public Service Commission · civil-service | Written test in statistics and general subjects, then interview (reported). | source |
| University of the Philippines Los Banos - MS/PhD Statistics unverified UPLB Institute of Statistics · pg | Admission by application (grades, recommendations); no national entrance exam. | source |
| Philippine Statistics Authority recruitment (statistician positions) unverified Philippine Statistics Authority; Civil Service Commission eligibility · civil-service | Civil Service eligibility plus agency selection (exam and interview). | source |
| Social Research Analyst (national technical qualification) unverified HRD Korea (Q-Net) · professional | Written exam followed by a practical exam (reported). | source |
| Eastern Africa Statistical Training Centre (EASTC) programmes Eastern Africa Statistical Training Centre · pg | Admission to certificate, diploma, degree and master's programmes in official statistics and data science. | source |
| ASA Accredited Professional Statistician (PStat) and Graduate Statistician (GStat) American Statistical Association · professional | Portfolio-based accreditation, not a written exam: advanced degree, documented experience, references and commitment to ethics and continuing education. | source |
| US federal Mathematical Statistician (series 1529) - USDA NASS and others unverified USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service via USAJOBS (Office of Personnel Management rules) · civil-service | No written exam: applications are rated on qualifications (statistics coursework and degree) and experience. | source |
| GRE General Test (for MS/PhD Statistics and Biostatistics) unverified ETS · pg | About 1 h 58 min, section-level adaptive: Analytical Writing, Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning. | source |
| SAS statistical certifications (Statistical Business Analyst, Applied Statistics Associate, Statistics for Machine Learning) SAS Institute · professional | Proctored online or test-centre exams per credential. | source |
| Royal Statistical Society professional awards (Data Analyst, GradStat, CStat) Royal Statistical Society · professional | Recognition by application against qualifications and work-based experience; CStat requires professional training and experience. Not a written exam (the RSS's own graduate examinations were discontinued in the 2010s, as Laisha knows; not stated on the page read). | source |
| UK Government Statistician Group (GSG) badging Government Statistical Service / Office for National Statistics · civil-service | Badging exercise for statisticians and data scientists entering government (assessment of qualifications and competence; recruitment centres include tests and interviews). | source |
Agricultural statisticians rarely own the crop, the cow or the survey village; they own the evidence. The same degree serves a student clearing ICAR AIEEA-PG Group 07, GATE Statistics or IIT JAM; a five-year scientist, survey statistician or data scientist who designs trials, supervises crop-cutting experiments or builds forecasting models; a twenty-five-year head of a statistics division, national statistical office unit or breeding-analytics team; and a PhD with twenty-five years who sets methods for a country and trains the next generation. This guide lists what each actually does and decides, what they look up and where it hurts, drawn from the ICAR syllabi, statistical-service and accreditation pages and programme descriptions in Laisha's research. What Laisha offers each of them is listed honestly: what exists now, and what is only planned, marked 'coming'.
Year 0-2 of the master's (and the PhD years): an agriculture, veterinary, engineering or mathematics graduate preparing for ICAR AIEEA-PG Group 07, AICE-JRF/SRF, GATE ST or DA, IIT JAM MS, ISI or CUET-PG, then studying about forty courses and writing a thesis.
What the day holds
Decisions that are theirs
What they look up
Where it hurts
An ARS scientist at a statistics institute or in a crop institute's statistics cell, a state Directorate of Economics and Statistics officer running crop-cutting experiments, an ISS or national statistical office officer, a biometrician in a seed or animal-genetics company, or a data scientist in agri-tech or crop insurance.
What the day holds
Decisions that are theirs
What they look up
Where it hurts
A principal scientist or division head at a statistics research institute, a deputy director-general level officer in a national statistical office, the head of a state statistics directorate, the head of breeding analytics in a multinational seed or animal-genetics company, or chief data officer of an agricultural agency.
What the day holds
Decisions that are theirs
What they look up
Where it hurts
A professor of agricultural statistics or biometry, the director of a statistics research institute, a member of national statistical commissions, or a senior methods adviser to FAO, the World Bank or a CGIAR centre.
What the day holds
Decisions that are theirs
What they look up
Where it hurts
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