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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?

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  • From: "Kathryn Kerby" <kakerby AT aol.com>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?
  • Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 09:27:08 -0800

Thanks Richard and Steve.  I was sort of afraid of this.  I remember reading a similar table in a book comparing different types of small-scale livestock operations, many years ago.  One hive of bees will take you X amount of time per month or per year.  A cow and calf, Y amount of time.  A batch of piglets, Z amount of time.  I thought maybe there was at least a rule of thumb for crops.  I did find one rather interesting study put out by the USDA for wheat, corn and cotton, starting around 1900 and ending in the early 60’s, to show how mechanization had dramatically shortened the hours per acre those three crops required.  The change really was astounding.  I think for corn it went from 70hrs per acre, down to 7.  I suspect most of that change was the increase in complexity and/or size of planting and harvesting equipment.  But that was the only such comparison I was able to find (so far).  

 

Richard, interesting that you found tomatoes and lettuce to be two of your “cash cows”.  I dearly adore tomatoes but had almost relegated them to the category of “expensive” on the assumption that they were relatively time-intensive.  I seem to spend more time coddling them than just about anything else.  Maybe because I enjoy them so much so it’s work I’m willing to do.  I don’t have enough market experience yet to really crunch hard numbers across a wide sampling, across a number of years. Just keep trundling away with it this year and see what my own numbers tell me.

 

And Steve, funny you’d mention engineers-turned-farmers as being the best record-takers.  My structural engineering husband has been the one goading me to take better notes for a long time, and/or have a field log book.  He announced over holiday break that he wanted to become the farm accountant, if I was willing, and I just about did the snoopy dance of joy.  So those financial records are already looking better than they have in years.  A lot of my new-found note-taking motivation, is so that the rest of the farm records will look as good.

Kathryn Kerby

Frogchorusfarm.com

Snohomish, WA

 


From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Steve Diver
Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2014 7:38 AM
To: Market Farming
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] time budget info for various field crops?

 

As an aside, in my work as a horticultural consultant the best record keepers I came across were engineers-turned-farmers.  They had previous careers and training as engineers but once they shifted into organic vegetable CSAs and fruit orchards they brought meticulous spreadsheets and record keeping to the table.   

Btw, while laying out spreadsheets, I found Calc the OpenOffice spreadsheet more fluidity than Excel, with both being essential to have around.

But to answer your question, I've never seen the time figures you're asking for in once place.  I figure experienced farmers have a sense for what you're asking, but it's not on paper in one table, plus it will vary widely between farming systems and labor pools.

The closest source I can suggest are the crop enterprise budgets published by land-grant universities/Extension Service.  They have labor/time estimates in the tables, per crop. (But lacking details so it's just a starting point).

Steve Diver



On 1/11/2014 10:38 PM, Kathryn Kerby wrote:

20140112033826.46474E8C3D AT lists.ibiblio.org" type=cite>

I am looking for something which maybe doesn’t exist.  A table of estimated or averaged manhours required for different kinds of veggie crops.  For instance, something which would list the approximate manhours required to take tomatoes from seeding through harvest, on a per-plant or per-row-foot or per-square-foot basis.  I know there are a lot of variables, such as whether stuff is direct-seeded vs transplanted, whether each step is done manually or via machinery, and probably a lot of stuff I haven’t even thought of.  But maybe something like this exists?  I’ve been doing Google searches on phrases like “time budget for vegetable crops” but keep coming up with hits for enterprise budgets, ie, how much money was spent on seeds and fertilizer and so on.  Not what I’m looking for.

I’m asking for several related reasons.  First, we’re trying to decide whether to add any additional crops to our existing work schedule for the year.  Also, we’re wondering if there is some kind of comparison between crops, such that if we wanted to add a few more, we could choose based (in part) on how much manpower they’d require, versus how much time we can give that new crop.  Maybe tomatoes would be too time-intensive, but perhaps onions wouldn’t.  I also would like to compare the limited manhours info I have for crops we’ve done in the past, versus how much manhours those same crops required other farms.  See if we’re taking more time than is really needed, on X crop.  If we’re spending five times more man hours in the field on squash, compared to some kind of national average, it would be nice to learn that so we can figure out why.

 

Anyone have any resources they could point me towards?  Thanks all………….

Kathryn Kerby

Frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA

 




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