The Status of Labor-Saving Mechanization in U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Harvesting

Wallace Huffman

Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper provides a description of important steps in the mechanization of U.S. fruit and vegetable harvesting, which can be hard, backbreaking work, and in addition, the risk of falling is significant for hand-harvesting fruit trees from ladders. Switching to mechanical harvesting frequently requires the transformation of a farming operation, e.g., new crop varieties, new field configurations, and new packing processes. In addition, a significant capital outlay is frequently required. Progress in mechanization varies a great deal across fruit and vegetable crops.

Keywords: fruits; vegetables; United States; Mechanization; mechanical harvesters (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-07-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/papers/p15132-2012-07-20.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Status of Labor-Saving Mechanization in U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Harvesting (2012)
Working Paper: The Status of Labor-saving Mechanization in U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Harvesting (2012)
Working Paper: The status of labor-saving mechanization in U.S. fruit and vegetable harvesting (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:isu:genres:35132

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics Iowa State University, Dept. of Economics, 260 Heady Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1070. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Curtis Balmer ().