Since its inception, Pakistan is experiencing rapid growth in human population despite tremendous efforts to check population explosion. Over the years the population density had been increasing, land to man ratio deteriorating, and the food and cloth requirements intensifying.

On the contrary, the scope for increase in cultivated area over the years has always been marginal. Therefore, the expectations of a wide gap between future food requirements and supplies are high which may possibly be reduced by improving average yields by intensive use of agricultural machinery. It is obvious that use of agricultural machinery not only speed up cultivation process but also accelerate harvesting and threshing operations. It is also instrumental to maximization of agricultural production by increasing land use and cropping intensities. Therefore, planning for judicious use of Agricultural Machinery is of utmost importance which, inter alia, depends upon availability of reliable and timely statistics. 

The use of Agricultural Machinery is increasing day by day in Pakistan like other agricultural countries of the world which has necessitated periodic stocktaking of Agricultural Machinery as a regular activity. Realizing this fact in Pakistan, the first Agricultural Machinery Census was conducted in 1968, second in 1975, third in 1984 and fourth in 1994. 

The current Agricultural Machinery Census is fifth in succession and was conducted in 2004. It has an edge over the previous censuses on account of the fact that it has also attempted to cover bulldozers, combine harvesters, wells with pump, submercible pumps, modern irrigation systems (MISs) and a large number of farm implements for the first time. Salient objectives of this census are as under: