increasing farm size and higher production per acre have largely taken place on the commercial family farms, bypassing for the most part the families located on these inadequate farming units. The total number of inadequate units has declined moderately but worker productivity on these farms in 1950 is probably lower in relation to the productivity of workers on the medium-size family farms than it was in 1944. In terms of potential productivity at average rates of performance the underemployment of the workers on this group of farms was probably greater in 1949 than it was in 1944. Available evidence indicates that the gap is getting wider rather than narrower between the output of workers on commercial family farms and those on the small scale, inadequate farming units. Some small-scale farms Studies in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics in cooperation with State agricultural experiment stations make it possible to list the acreages of crops, production of crops and livestock, and the receipts and expenses on a few types of small-scale farms. These are shown in table 2. TABLE 2.-Organization, receipts, expenses, and employment on typical small-scale farms, 1945 price level Based on Technical Bulletin 87, North Carolina Experiment Station, and unpublished data. Haywood County, N. C., by S. W. Atkins (preliminary report). DW. Pann, Farm Practices and Organization in the Southern Sand-Clay Hills of Mississippi, MisArricultural Experiment Bulletin 466. Prices used in this study are "normal" price estimates di belt-wide cotton study, and are lower than 1945 prices. If prices are adjusted to 1945 level, net maru income would be about $200 and family labor earnings about $600. Adapted from unpublished data, cooperative project, BAE and University of Illinois. Adapted from unpublished data from current study by BAE, North Carolina State College cooperating. Adapted from unpublished data provided by BAE. Esmates of income and expenses are based upon 1945 prices for each farm except the farm in Sand-Clay EM FAMILIES ON FARMS WITH $1,500 TO $2,499 GROSS VALUE OF PRODUCTS, 1944 A breakdown of the estimates relating to farm families with a gros value of products of $1,500 to $2,499 in 1944 follows: Farm families with gross value of products $1,500 to $2,499. 909, 00 Number with 100 days or more work off farm... 100, 00 Other farmers with off-farm income over $1,000 (estimate). 100,00 Farm families with little or no outside income... 709, 00 Farm families with heads over 65 years of age, under 25 years, widows or disabled (estimate) __ Farm families, operator able-bodied and of working age, little or no offfarm work or outside income___ 109, 00 600, 00 This group of farm families differs from the 1,000,000 farm familie described earlier in that these families are on somewhat larger of more productive farming units. Their productivity per worker and level of family living is still extremely low as compared with worker on medium-size family farms and as compared with industrial workers On the average, after account is taken of lower capital investment workers on these farms are about 60 percent as efficient as worker on medium-size commercial family farms. Geographical location Farm families with $1,500 to $2,499 gross value of farm products in 1944 were found in all sections of the United States. They were found in greatest numbers, however, in those areas where the greatest number of the smaller, less productive farms were found (fig. 1 Somewhat more of these farms are located in the Northern States than was true of the smaller units. In the Northern States thes farms are found in the greatest numbers in the northern counties of the Lake States, in the rougher areas of the Northeastern States, in the southern sections of Indiana and Illinois, and in Missouri. Estimates for the major geographic regions indicate that the 600,000 farm families described above were distributed as follows: Approximately 60 percent of the farm families with $1,500 to $2,499 gross value of products in 1944 owned the farms they operated and 40 percent were tenants. Adjustments for work off farm, outside income, operators over 65 or under 25 years of age, and for families headed by widows or disabled individuals eliminated a larger number of owner families than tenants. Of the families headed by ablebodied men of working age, 53 percent or 320,000 are owner families and 47 percent or 280,000 are tenant families. Although regional data are not available, it is believed that most of the tenant families in this group, as well as most of the tenant families on the smaller farms discussed earlier, are located in the South. Approximately 100,000 of the farm families headed by able-bodied men of working age with a gross value of products of $1,500 to $2,499 in 1944 were sharecroppers located in the South. Estimates of numbers of owners, tenants, and sharecroppers in each of the two groups may be summarized as follows: Organization of farms with gross value of products $1,500 to $2,499 The acreages of crops, production of crops and livestock receipts and expenses for two farms of the size and type discussed above are shown in table 3. TABLE 3.-Organization of representative small farms, value of products $1,500 to $2,500, 1945 price level 1 A lapte 1 from cooperative studies by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and State experiment sta "ma of typical family-operated farms, costs and returns in these areas. PART-TIME FARM FAMILIES Among farm families reporting value of production under $1,500 in the 1945 census, 1,615,000 are classified as part-time farmers. This group includes all farmers who worked off their farms 100 days or mere, all farmers having income from nonfarm sources larger than their farm incomes, and all farmers reporting value of production. Ander $400. Surveys conducted by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics make it possible to estimate the number of these families who received income from farm and nonfarm sources of less than and in excess of $2,000 (cash family incomes would be substantially lower 78956-51-4 as perhaps half of the farm income must be used to cover farm operating expenses). Approximately 20 percent of the heads of families on part-time farms were over 65 years of age in 1945. Subtraction from the total of those over 65 years of age, those under 25 years, families headed by widows and those headed by disabled individuals results in the estimate of 400,000 part-time families headed by able-bodied men with total incomes of less than $2,000. This group of families are called underemployed primarily because of their low level of income. Incomes for this group of families are approximately half those in the middle income range of the rural nonfarm families. These part-time farm families also have incomes only 50 to 60 percent as large as the families on medium-size commercial family farms. Thus, we conclude that workers in these families are only 50 percent as productive as workers in the average rural nonfarm family or on the medium-size family farms. Part-time farms are located adjacent to towns and cities. They are also found in large numbers in the coal mining areas and adjacent to the forest lands and recreation areas. Data are not available to indicate the location of the part-time farm families with low levels of income in contrast to those with average or above average incomes. It is believed, however, that underemployment of part-time farm families is primarily the result of inadequate job opportunities in the community. Families living within commuting distance of jobs have no special problems. But many part-time farm families are stranded in rural areas where off-farm jobs are declining. This is especially true in areas where jobs in lumbering and mining are decreasing. Many of these low-income, low-productivity, part-time farm families are located in the Appalachian and Ozark Mountain areas and the hill areas of the cotton South where the farm population density is greatest and where nonfarm job opportunities are sharply limited. Ꭺ number of these families may be able to find more productive employment in agriculture, but the more general solution is to bring industrial plants to many of these rural areas and to assist these families in moving to other communities where additional workers are needed. The military program for decentralization of industry should take into account the availability of labor in these rural areas. HIRED FARM WORKERS Hired farm workers constitute a special group of underemployed rural families. Pertinent statistics are collected through special surveys of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and Bureau of Census. The most recent information indicates that in 1949 there were about 1,200,000 male hired farm workers. They worked an average of 218 days at farm work and 14 days at nonfarm wage work. Information on their marital status is not directly available. Data on the occupational status of the civilian population in the United States for 1949 show that there were 554,000 married farm laborers and foremen with wives present. From this we conclude that nearly half the 1,200,000 hired farm wage workers are married. Hired farm workers are not fully utilized because of the highly seasonal requirements of many of our crops for hand labor during From The Hired Farm Working Force-1948-49, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1950. IL. planting, weeding, and harvesting seasons. If the workers who perform these essential tasks are to have fuller employment, additional job opportunities during the slack seasons must be created on the farms or in nonfarm occupations. Further mechanization of these hand-labor tasks and transfer of a part of these workers to steady nonfarm jobs will also help. MIGRATORY FARM LABOR Some underemployed farm families leave their farms during the harvest season and supplement their farm incomes by picking cotton, fruit, potatoes, tomatoes, or other crops; others forsake their farms entirely and attempt to make a living by following the crop harvest. Through years of varying economic conditions relatively permanent groups of workers have developed who meet the peak-season labor Leeds in various parts of the country. These are principally but not exclusively from farm sources. They have developed rather definite paths of movement from the winter work areas in Florida, south Texas, Arizona, and southern California to summer harvest areas in the north. The number of people in this migratory work force has varied with crop conditions, prices of farm products, displacement by mechanization, and the general level of nonagricultural employment. It has also changed with the opportunity to go into urban occupations. According to a Nation-wide survey made in 1949 there were slightly more than 1,000,000 people over 14 years of age in this work force at that time. This number includes several hundred thousand workers from across the Mexican border who compete with domestic labor for the work that is available. Farm people who go into the migratory labor force do so from lack of better opportunity and then merely change to another and less secare type of underemployment. According to the survey previously mentioned, the average number of days of employment for migratory workers over the country in 1949 was 101, 70 days in farm work and 31 more in nonfarm employment. Three factors enter into this underemployment. First, a period of several slack months when there is little seasonal employment to be found. Second, irregular and intermittent employment during the harvest season. Some harvests are oversupplied with workers, others last for such a brief period that the amount of work obtained by a Worker is small. The third factor is too large a supply of workers for the amount of work available. Migratory workers compete with local asonal and year-round workers for employment. The latter, too, then suffer from underemployment; during 1949, they had a total of 12 days employment of which 91 days were in farm work and 29 in Bonfarm jobs.? The earnings from the 101 days of farm work which the migratory workers obtained in 1949 amounted to an average of $514.7 The e of housing, transportation, and other perquisites amounts to $36 more. At an average of two workers per family, total family Loomes averaged $1,028 cash or $1,100 with perquisites. This amount had to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate a family of four. View Farm Workers in 1949, Louis J. Ducoff, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1950. ་ ་་ Crary Farm Workers in 1949, Louis Ducoff, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1949. Tites Furnished Hired Farm Workers, Barbara B. Reagan, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, |