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SECURITY of WAR-TIME FOOD SUI IES DEPENDS on POWER FARMING

29th June 1940, Page 46
29th June 1940
Page 46
Page 47
Page 48
Page 46, 29th June 1940 — SECURITY of WAR-TIME FOOD SUI IES DEPENDS on POWER FARMING
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

IN one decade which was completed shortly before the outbreak of war, this country lost 142,000 workers from its farms. Broadcasting recently, Mr, R. S. Hudson, Minister of Agriculture, announced an estimate of a further loss of anything up to 70,000 men to other industries since September.

Taking the labour supply as a cardinal point in the new Government's agricultural policy, Mr. Hudson went on to say that we must stop others leaving and get these men back, especially the skilled men. He stated that the Minister of Labour intended to issue an Order prohibiting employers in any other . industry from taking on men at present engaged in agriculture. Also, anyone with agricultural experience, who is now working in another industry, would have to return to agriculture when he falls out of work.

It had been agreed that agricultural wages should be brought more into line with those in other jobs, which meant raising the pay of agricultural workers. It meant, too, the raising of agricultural prices to enable those increased wages to be paid. Farmers and workers had agreed to recommend the Central Wages Board to fix a new minimum of 48s. a week.

This speech of Mr. Hudson's marked a further, and very important, step forward in the progress of power f a r ming in this country, f o r n o mistake should be made about the ultimate effect on the labour position. The fact that compulsory increased wage rates are fixed at a considerably higher level than ruled before means that many fewer workers will be employed on given areas, and nothing in the way of higher prices for produce will have much effect in counteracting the farmer's desire to economize in labour costs. Furthermore, the proposed changes are not likely to bring back many hands during the war, because they depend mainly upon the return of people who fall out of employment.

With a rise in the minimum wage of what amounts to an average of 10s. to 15s. per week, it is quite obvious to all practical farmers that they must plan to secure the greatest possible work output from every hand employed. This is doubly necessary by reason of the actual shortage Of men in a great many districts. In short, every man must work in conjunction with equipment which will raise his productive output.

War-time effort will be largely concentrated upon the arable land, growing crops for direct human consumption and feeding stuffs for livestock. In all cultivation work, roan's effort can be greatly magnified with the help of tractors and their attendant equipment. One man walking behind a two-horse single-furrow plough has a daily output of no more than one acre; more often three-quarters is the maximum. With a small tractor and a twoor three-furrow plough, the operator becomes responsible for three to five acres per day. With a large crawler tractor, one man may be handling up to eight furrows and completing 20 acres a day.

These are comparisons in terms of a normal 10-hour day and do not take account of overtime. Although it is a tough job, tractor driving can be extended over longer hours, but the physical limitations of horses preclude their being worked much beyond the ordinary day.

The tractor man's output potential is, naturally, comparable over a large range of other operations on arable land. The speed of travel and the width of land covered at one passage are both materially increased beyond what can be done with the horse. From the plough comparisons given above, anyone can readily deduce similar ratios between horse and mechanical outputs on such jobs as cultivating, disc harrowing, rolling, and so on.

There is another class of arable work, in which the speeding up made possible by the introduction of tractor power has been less universally recognized, and that is row-crop intercultivation. In the growing of pbtatoes, mangolds, sugar beet and the like, there has been a tendency to retain horses for the intercultivations required by these crops, which are grown in rows. Generally speaking, this means that implements designed for haulage by a horse and working a single row at a time set the pace for all intercultivations. One man to each implement is essential; often, in certain crops, a lad to lead the horse is also employed.

The introduction, a few years ago, of the row-crop tractor, has thrown an entirely new phase of tractor operation open to the arable farmer. Carrying its tools mounted upon the tractor chassis, with power-operated lifting gear, one man is in control of an outfit which may move ,.at anything up to three times the speed of a horse and work three, four, or more rows at a stroke, instead of one at a time.

The exact amount by which the cost of man labour is reduced depends on the crop. On potato work, .where three rows are taken in place of one and the speed of travel may be taken, on the whole, as being increased threefold, we get a direct cut of labour costs to one-ninth of those entailed in horse work.

Where two men are concerned in horse work, and only one with a tractor outfit, a much bigger cut may be practicable. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the work is greater when it can be done quickly and the total operations needed per season may, thereb y, be reduced.

In the harvest field power .operated machines again snake it possible for the farmer to pay high wages to the operators and yet secure a reduction in costs, as compared with horse operations. With livestock, the utility of machine equipment in this connection is again apparent. Two men, for instance, using a modern machine-milking outfit are easily able to care for and milk twice daily a herd of 60 cows, a job which, without machinery, would call for three times this number of hand milkers.

The new conditions strengthen, more than ever, the view that agricultural production must depend more and more upon mechanical plant. Not even the most fantastically high prices for produce would bring about any diminution of the advance of power farming. What has to be realized is that the men working in new farming methods cannot be just mechanics. They have to combine with the ability to handle and care for machines, the knowledge of the agricultnral purposes for which the machines are employed.

It is, in fact, less easy to recruit labour for the farm to-day than it was in 1914-18. Then one could employ a farming novicq, with seine mechanical knowledge, to drive a tractor with some measure of success, because his implement—a plough, cultivator or mower—was ridden by a second hand, who attended to its work,-and it was usually possible to find a farm man to do this. To-day all ploughs and cultivators and many mowers and other implements, come under the .direct control of the tractor driver, thus forming a oneman outfit.

Consequently, the operator has to combine two varieties of skill and a first-class example of the all-round farmtractor driver is something of which to be proud. There is an urgent need for expanding the facilities for giving all the practical training needed to increase the number of such operators available and to see that the facilities are used. We shall have to depend on these workers for much of our food in the days ahead and the matter is of such vital importance that to treat it with disregard is nothing short of the action of an imbecile.

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Organisations: Central Wages Board
People: R. S. Hudson

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