Tobacco Technology and Agricultural Labor

Abstract

At the founding of the American commonwealth two hundred years ago, 95% of the population was engaged in agriculture. Today, less than 4% of the labor force remains in agriculture, the result of a massive shift of labor from the farm to the nonfarm sector. From a historical perspective, the agricultural changes which displace substantial numbers of farmworkers are nearly complete; estimates indicate that the share of the labor force in agriculture is expected to decline to 2% by 1985 (U.S. Dep. of Labor, p. 336). Just as agriculture has slowed the rate at which it disgorges its surplus labor into the nonfarm sector, renewed concern for the consequences of some agricultural changes is being expressed. The public agricultural research establishment is indicted for neglecting the human costs of the labor displacement which often accompany mechanization, for accelerating the pace of environmental and rural decay, and for encouraging the production of profitable but less palatable crops (California Assembly, Hightower). Although the values of critics may be questioned and the cogency of specific indictments disputed, the conflict between the drive for agricultural efficiency and the needs of farmworkers, the environment, and consumers promises to be prominent in the set of issues which 'seem likely to broaden and intensify (Farrell, p. 786) rather than disappear. The absence of informed debate on the relative virtues of agricultural efficiency and workplace equity obscures the real interdependency between the social goals of efficiency and equity, permitting the enactment of incompatible policies designed for what are actually joint problems. This paper examines the benefits and costs which can be expected as a result of mechanizing the harvest of one of the most labor-intensive crops in America, flue-cured tobacco.' In 1972, about 141 million man-hours, 3% of all man-hours used in the production of crops, were used to produce fluecured tobacco on 0.5 million acres of land in the Southeast (Grise et al., p. 22; U.S. Dep. of Agriculture, p. 99). Most flue-cured tobacco labor (60%70%) is used in the six-to-eight-week harvest. Although mechanical innovations introduced since World War II already have reduced harvest employment, the introduction of the mechanical harvester and adoption of bulk barns is further reducing harvest labor demands. The mechanical tobacco harvester, developed with public monies, serves as an illustration of the research-displacement nexus in agriculture and permits the exploration of the various policy options available to alter the linkage. After a brief description of technological changes in the flue-cured tobacco industry, we derive an estimate of the average annual return which can be expected as a result of past and ongoing research outlays. In the third section of this paper, we explore the magnitude of potential adjustment costs likely to be incurred by displaced harvest labor. In the concluding section, we review the prospects for successfully implementing any of the proposed compensation or assistance schema. Throughout the paper, our focus remains on the efficiencyequity conundrum. While no ideal solution appears available, it is hoped that a discussion of the need for solutions can generate more research on a timely issue.