| Sumario: | This paper analyzed the economic efficiency of
labor use among small corn growers. Three different
groups of farmers are contrasted: Producers who
adopted ICA's recommended technical package,
farmers receiving technical assistance services, and
producers cultivating under traditional methods and
receiving no technical assistance.
Cobb-Douglas, and quadratic production functions were used to estimate, via marginal analysis,
labor efficiency points for each of the mentioned
groups. The analysis of the data yielded the folio.
wing results:
- Under traditional technology, farmers overutiize
labor: They employ more units of labor than
they should in order to keep their levels of
proctions.
- Under the recommended technology, farmers
tend to underutilize labor resources: They use
fewer units of labor than they could if they were
to increase their output.
- No clear-cut conclusion could be obtained from
the analyses of the data regarding the third of
growers.
Data from another study on labor use within the
same region suggest that the introduction of new
technology implies increased use of labor resources.
However the recommended technology seems to
bring about seasonal labor shortages in some areas
within the region. This could be one of the reasons
to explain labor underutilization among adopters of
the recommended corn technology.
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