Technological change and employment in South African agriculture : the case of maize harvesting in the Western Transvaal
type: CreativeWork
description: Changes in the choice of technique in the harvesting and delivery of maize and weeding, the causes of these changes, and their consequences for employment and unemployment, were investigated. Data was collected for 61 farms in six magisterial districts of the Western Transvaal for the period 1968-1981. In 1968 about 30 percent of the crop was being harvested mechanically; by 1981, 95 percent. Sacks, in which almost half of total output was being delivered to depots in 1968, had, by 1977, been almost completely displaced by bulk handling. From 15 percent of the total crop area of 1968, weed sprays were being applied to 95 percent in 1981. There was an increase of about 75 percent in the average surface area of farms, and more than a doubling in the average yield per hectare. The greatest part of most of these changes occurred between 1973 and 1977. The causes of changes in the choice of technique were sought both in theory - neo-classical and historical-materialist - and in empirical evidence. A growing shortage of men but not of women, the convenience and controllability of combine-harvesting, and economies of scale generated by the increasing size of farms, were all important causes. But the cost advantage of mechanical over hand-harvesting on all except the smallest farms is what appears to have been crucial. For various reasons, this was not fully exploited until the middle '70s. Exogenous developments in technology, rather than changes in relative factor prices, should be seen as the fundamental cause of changes in harvesting techniques. Seasonal workers were still employed to glean after combine-harvesting and to hoe spray-resistant weeds, but whereas in the late '60s seasonal harvesting teams consisted typically of a comparatively large number of workers from black rural areas, mainly adults - women in the majority - and a few children, by the late '70s they were composed of a comparatively small number, most of whom were the wives and children of permanent fa…
abstract: Changes in the choice of technique in the harvesting and delivery of maize and weeding, the causes of these changes, and their consequences for employment and unemployment, were investigated. Data was collected for 61 farms in six magisterial districts of the Western Transvaal for the period 1968-1981. In 1968 about 30 percent of the crop was being harvested mechanically; by 1981, 95 percent. Sacks, in which almost half of total output was being delivered to depots in 1968, had, by 1977, been almost completely displaced by bulk handling. From 15 percent of the total crop area of 1968, weed sprays were being applied to 95 percent in 1981. There was an increase of about 75 percent in the average surface area of farms, and more than a doubling in the average yield per hectare. The greatest part of most of these changes occurred between 1973 and 1977. The causes of changes in the choice of technique were sought both in theory - neo-classical and historical-materialist - and in empirical evidence. A growing shortage of men but not of women, the convenience and controllability of combine-harvesting, and economies of scale generated by the increasing size of farms, were all important causes. But the cost advantage of mechanical over hand-harvesting on all except the smallest farms is what appears to have been crucial. For various reasons, this was not fully exploited until the middle '70s. Exogenous developments in technology, rather than changes in relative factor prices, should be seen as the fundamental cause of changes in harvesting techniques. Seasonal workers were still employed to glean after combine-harvesting and to hoe spray-resistant weeds, but whereas in the late '60s seasonal harvesting teams consisted typically of a comparatively large number of workers from black rural areas, mainly adults - women in the majority - and a few children, by the late '70s they were composed of a comparatively small number, most of whom were the wives and children of permanent fa…
author: De Klerk, Michael John
language: eng
date published: 1983
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:22:49Z
provider: University of Cape Town
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: School of Economics

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17213