BRITISH FARMING WORK STUDY

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28445, 27 November 1957, Page 8

BRITISH FARMING WORK STUDY

“Auspicious Moment”

For Introduction

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, November 25

Work study is the coming thing in British agriculture, says the agricultural correspondent of the “Financial Times.” “It comes on the scene at a particularly auspicious moment because, if there is one 'ailment in particular that our farming suffers from today, it is plain indigestion,” the newspaper says. “Consider the investment that has taken place in the last 10 years or so—true at a diminishing pace: £2oBm on buildings and works, £ls3m on vehicles, £464m’ on plant and machinery between 1948 and 1956. Consider how all this has had to be absorbed, deployed and paid for as rapidly as possible out of expanding production and contracting profits.' “Consider, too, how the labour force has declined from its artificial war-time peak at the rate of 109 able bodies every working day and how with the wellmerited rise in wages those two basic resources, brawn and brain; in agriculture as elsewhere, have come to be looked upon in a new light—brawn as a rather inefficient source of power, brain as an invaluable directive force. “In view of the reasons—the scarcity value of manpower, the pressure of costs, the pursuit of efficiency, the accumulation of gross fixed capital formation, and above all the indigestion of the industry that has been force fed for quick results—work study notions come pat upon the hour. “Taken in conjunction with the growing wealth of our economic knowledge, a little systematic analysis of means and methods should help on every farm to organise the available resources to the best possible advantage," the “Financial Times” correspondent says.