Masters Theses

Date of Award

3-1969

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Agricultural Economics

Major Professor

William E. Goble

Committee Members

Larry Bauer, Charles Cleland

Abstract

The sharp Increase in acreage of Southern peas and increasing shortage of farm labor have increased the need for a shift from manual to mechanical harvesting. Mechanical combines and complementary equipment require large capital investments. The producer and processor need information to compare manual and mechanical harvesting costs at different levels of output in Tennessee. The specific objectives of this study were:

1. To determine the input-output coefficients for harvesting Southern peas manually and mechanically.

2. To estimate the fixed, variable, and total unit costs of harvesting Southern peas manually and mechanically, and to determine the acreage and volume necessary for mechanical harvesting to be profitable.

3. To determine harvesting costs when mechanical harvesters were used at maximum and less than maximum capacity.

4. To ascertain harvesting costs with 10, 20, and 30 percent losses with the mechanical harvester.

Time and production studies were made with 282 manual harvesters, nine combines, and three swathers. Farms studied for manual harvesting were randomly selected from planting schedules provided by the local processing plant. Total costs per acre to harvest Southern peas mechanically were related to yield per acre, output per hour, length of the harvest season, the depreciation period, and annual acreage harvested. Average output per man-hour for hand-picked peas was 28.18 pounds (unshelled) or 16.9 pounds (shelled) at a 60 percent shell-out. The mobile viner averaged 387.54 pounds (shelled) per hour (based on total field hours). The mobile viner's output per man-hour was 23 times more than a person harvesting manually.

For manual harvesting fixed costs were $8.12 per acre. Variable costs were $71.64 (assuming 2,000 pounds of unshelled peas per acre), and total costs were $79.76 per acre. Annual fixed costs for one combine with 5- and 10-year depreciation schedules were $6,207.01 and $5,346.43, respectively, and variable costs were $11.44 per hour.

Assuming an output rate of 387.54 pounds (shelled) per hour for the combine, a 500-hour season, and a 5- and 10-year depreciation period, mechanical harvesting was more expensive than the manual method ($79.76 per ton) for both the 5- and 10-year depreciation period for one to 11 combines. When the season length was 750 hours, mechanical harvesting costs were equivalent to the manual method when 345 tons were harvested annually. When 400 and 500 tons were harvested annually, costs per ton declined to $72.38 and $70.35, respectively. With a depreciation period of 10 years, hand and machine harvesting costs were the same when 300 tons were harvested annually. When 400 and 500 tons were harvested annually, there were savings of $12.20 and $14.34 per ton, respectively, by harvesting mechanically.

Hand and machine harvesting costs for only one combine with a 5- and 10-year depreciation period, and 400 pounds output per hour, were the same when 134 and 118 tons, respectively, were harvested.

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