IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/agecon/v1y1987i3p241-258.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labour‐Related Structural Trends in South African Maize Production

Author

Listed:
  • J. Van Zyl
  • N. Vink
  • T.I. Fényes

Abstract

The substitution of capital goods, including new technology, for land and labour has played an important role and has influenced the structure of Sout African agriculture. Farm labour‐related trends in the summer rainfall grain‐producing area of South Africa are considered. The amount of labour used, the remuneration of labour, the substitution of capital for labour and productivity trends are analyzed. Growth rates were obtained by fitting exponential functions with time as independent variable. The decline in the number of farm employees per 1000 hectares under cultivation since 1970 probably resulted from mechanization and thus capital‐labour substitution in maize production, especially in harvesting. Tax concessions on new capital improvements, the subsidization of agriculture in general and the increasing rate of urbanization contributed to this trend. The scarcity of capital relative to unskilled labour, which has been reinforced by policy measures favouring capital intensity (capital formation has increased by 4.0% per annum between 1950 and 1980, compared with an increase of 0.71% per annum in the number of farm employees in the same period); this implies that corrective policy changes are required to improve the present distorted situation. This will enable the commercial agricultural sector of South Africa to play a more meaningful role in the socio‐economic development of the whole subcontinent.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Van Zyl & N. Vink & T.I. Fényes, 1987. "Labour‐Related Structural Trends in South African Maize Production," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 1(3), pages 241-258, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:1:y:1987:i:3:p:241-258
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1574-0862.1987.tb00023.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-0862.1987.tb00023.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1574-0862.1987.tb00023.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hoop, D. & Mack, G. & Mann, S. & Schmid, D., 2014. "Zur Dynamik unterschiedlicher Institutionalisierungsformen landwirtschaftlicher Arbeit – Eine empirische Untersuchung Schweizer Familienbetriebe," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 49, March.
    2. Breitenbach, Marthinus C. & Fenyes, Tamas I., 2000. "Maize and wheat production trends in South Africa in a deregulated environment," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 39(3), pages 1-21, September.
    3. Liebenberg, Frikkie & Pardey, Philip & Beddow, Jason & Kirsten, Johann, 2016. "Re-Estimating South African Agricultural Output Value, Quantity And Price Aggregates, 1910–2010," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 54(4), March.
    4. van Zyl, J. & Vink, N., 1989. "Structural Aspects Of Beef Production On Pastures In The Summer Rainfall Grain Producing Areas Of South Africa," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 28(3), October.
    5. Vink, N., 1993. "Entrepreneurs And The Political Economy Of Reform In South African Agriculture," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 32(4), December.
    6. Liebenberg, Frikkie & Pardey, Philip G., 2012. "A long-run view of South African agricultural production and productivity," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 7(1), pages 1-25, October.
    7. Hoop, Daniel & Mack, Gabriele & Mann, Stefan & Schmid, Dierk, 2014. "On the dynamics of agricultural labour input and their impact on productivity and income: an empirical study of Swiss family farms," International Journal of Agricultural Management, Institute of Agricultural Management, vol. 3(4), pages 1-11.
    8. Andreas Exenberger & Andreas Pondorfer, 2011. "Rain, temperature and agricultural production: The impact of climate change in Sub-Sahara Africa, 1961-2009," Working Papers 2011-26, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    9. Schimmelpfennig, David & Thirtle, Colin & van Zyl, Johan & Arnade, Carlos & Khatri, Yougesh, 2000. "Short and long-run returns to agricultural R&D in South Africa, or will the real rate of return please stand up?," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 1-15, June.
    10. Payne, N. L. & van Zyl, J. & Sartorius von Bach, H. J., 1990. "Labour-Related Structural Trends In South African Commercial Grain Production: A Comparison Between The Summer And Winter Rainfall Areas, 1945-1987," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 29(4), December.
    11. Vink, N. & Kirsten, J.F., 1999. "A Descriptive Analysis Of Employment Trends In South African Agriculture," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 38(2).
    12. repec:ags:ijag24:346846 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Khatri, Y. & Schimmelpfennig, D. & Thirtle, C. & van Zyl, J., 1996. "Refining Returns To Research And Development In South African Commercial Agriculture," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 35(4), December.
    14. Greyling, Jan C. & Pardey, Philip G., 2018. "Measuring Maize in South Africa: The Shifting Structure of Production During the Twentieth Century, 1904–2015," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 58(1), November.
    15. Greyling, Jan & Vink, Nick & Lombard, Jan & von Fintel, Dieter & van der Westhuizen, Divan & Vermeulen, Hester & Boonzaaier, Johann & Meyer, Ferdi & Garbers, Chris, 2015. "Farm-WorkerSectoral Determination: An Analysis of Agricultural Wages in South Africa 2015," BFAP Reports 279754, Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), BFAP Reports.
    16. van Zyl, Johan & Binswanger, Hans & Thirtle, Colin, 1995. "The relationship between farm size and efficiency in South African agriculture," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1548, The World Bank.
    17. Kirsten, Johann F. & van Zyl, Johan, 1998. "Defining Small-Scale Farmers In The South African Context," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 37(4), pages 1-12, December.
    18. Greyling, Jan C. & Vink, Nick & Mbaya, Edward, 2015. "South Africa’S Agricultural Sector Twenty Years After Democracy (1994 To 2013)," Professional Agricultural Workers Journal (PAWJ), Professional Agricultural Workers Conference, vol. 3(1), pages 1-15.
    19. van Zyl, Johan, 1995. "The Farm Size-Efficiency Relationship In South African Commercial Agriculture," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 34(4), December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:1:y:1987:i:3:p:241-258. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.