PRACTICAL FIELD ADVICE

 Farmers have standard estimates of the amount
 of time required to do most traditional field
 operations. The amount of land a person can weed,
 plant, or clear in a day is established as much by
 custom as by measurement. Where these
 measurements are available, they should be used
 for the traditional treatments because it reflects
 reality in the area.
 The problem comes when changes in the amount
 of labor required to accomplish specific tasks are
 made. If more time is required to weed a certain
 area, the people who are doing the work may demand
 more pay. On the other hand, if less time is
 required, the farmer may try to increase the area
 which is completed in a day's time. Evaluating
 these possible changes must be done by asking the
 opinions of farmers and laborers or by waiting to
 see what happens in practice.


 Having the information from farms and plots, the
researcher can make appropriate adjustments in plot data.
By converting plot size to hectares or some other measure
of land area commonly utilized by farmers, a factor is
available for comparing plot labor usage with real farm
data. For example, if a 10 x 10 meter plot requires one
half hour for an operation, this is equivalent to 50
hours/ha or 6.25 workdays of 8 hours/day. If the same
operation on a farm basis requires 20 workdays per
hectare, then 20 / 6.25 = 3.2 is the conversion factor.
In other words, multiplying labor operations done on a 10
X 10 plot by 3.2 and adjusting plot size to a normal land
unit size results in an estimate of the labor required on
a normal land unit basis. For example, if labor required
for another 10 X 10 m plot is 20 minutes (1/24 workday),
then workdays per hectare for this technology is:
 (1 / 24) x 3.2 x 100 = 13.3

 If labor for weeding is the limiting resource in a
recommendation domain, then production should be divided
by weeding time to get an estimate of labor productivity
(product per unit of labor). For example, consider the