An analysis of labour supply and productivity in the oil palm industry : a case study of the Cape Hoskins Settlement Scheme, Papua New Guinea
type: CreativeWork
description: Since World War II, efforts to promote growth of commercial agriculture in the economy of Papua New Guinea have included a strategy of encouraging both estate and smallholder production of agricultural export crops. One recent facet of this has been the establishment of 'nucleus estate' schemes that involve an interdependent relationship between large scale estates and processing facilities and land settlement schemes for smallholders. One such scheme was the Cape Hoskins Oil Palm Land Settlement Scheme. Commencing in 1968 this was the first large scale 'nucleus estate' in the country and had as its objectives the introduction of oil palm on a commercial basis, the integration of people of different ethnic backgrounds into a single settlement scheme and the utilisation of some of the unexploited land resources of the country. In this study, analysis is made of data from a comprehensive labour availability and utilisation study of a sample of 23 settlers^ from Kapore, the first sub-division established in Hoskins. The objectives of the study are: (i)to examine the settlers actual labour utilisation patterns; (ii) to test the explicit and implicit assumptions made by the Project Planning Team regarding the availability and utilisation of labour of an average household; (iii) to relate labour inputs in oil palm to the performance of settlers in terms of their output levels via the estimation of a production function and a technical efficiency index of settlers. The most notable findings of the labour input analysis are that an average settler household utilised more labour than was originally assumed by the Project and was able to overcome its family labour shortages during times of peak labour demand, e.g., harvesting, by utilising outside assistance obtained through a system of mutual labour exchange amongst households. Examination of differences in labour inputs of settlers reveals that significant variations exist in labour inputs in oil palm activities among the t…
abstract: Since World War II, efforts to promote growth of commercial agriculture in the economy of Papua New Guinea have included a strategy of encouraging both estate and smallholder production of agricultural export crops. One recent facet of this has been the establishment of 'nucleus estate' schemes that involve an interdependent relationship between large scale estates and processing facilities and land settlement schemes for smallholders. One such scheme was the Cape Hoskins Oil Palm Land Settlement Scheme. Commencing in 1968 this was the first large scale 'nucleus estate' in the country and had as its objectives the introduction of oil palm on a commercial basis, the integration of people of different ethnic backgrounds into a single settlement scheme and the utilisation of some of the unexploited land resources of the country. In this study, analysis is made of data from a comprehensive labour availability and utilisation study of a sample of 23 settlers^ from Kapore, the first sub-division established in Hoskins. The objectives of the study are: (i)to examine the settlers actual labour utilisation patterns; (ii) to test the explicit and implicit assumptions made by the Project Planning Team regarding the availability and utilisation of labour of an average household; (iii) to relate labour inputs in oil palm to the performance of settlers in terms of their output levels via the estimation of a production function and a technical efficiency index of settlers. The most notable findings of the labour input analysis are that an average settler household utilised more labour than was originally assumed by the Project and was able to overcome its family labour shortages during times of peak labour demand, e.g., harvesting, by utilising outside assistance obtained through a system of mutual labour exchange amongst households. Examination of differences in labour inputs of settlers reveals that significant variations exist in labour inputs in oil palm activities among the t…
author: Shamsuddin, Norasmah
language: en
date published: 1977
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:54:51Z
provider: Australian National University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Australian National University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/131647