Relationships of Labor Costs to Selected Variables in Flue-Cured Tobacco Production

Abstract

Since 1960, data from “typical” enterprise budgets have been used extensively in several studies dealing with a wide variety of problems. Budgets were compiled in cost-of-production studies by Green, Pierce and Williams, Coutu and Mangum and the North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service. Without surprise, extensive use of these budgets has focused attention on their limitations.More extensive and precise field measurements were needed for several cost items, particularly labor costs. In addition, certain types of cost-input or cost-output relationships were implicit in such constant-type coefficients—relationships which may or may not exist in reality. It may be true, for example, that X hours of priming labor are required to harvest Y pounds of tobacco, but it might require α + 1.8X hours to harvest 2Y pounds.