Mechanical Harvesting and Packing of Iceberg Lettuce

Stanley S. Johnson and Mike Zahara

No 307637, Agricultural Economic Reports from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

Abstract: This report describes the operations and costs of existing and alternative mechanized lettuce harvesting systems. For mechanization, the immediate prospect is to substitute a harvest machine for the workers who select, cut, and trim the lettuce. Mechanizing the packing and wrapping operations is also possible. Analysis of the cost data indicates that the existing hand-cut, pack-in-the-field system is efficient compared with previous hand-cut methods and is slightly higher in cost compared with machine-cut systems. A ranking of harvest costs places the hand-cut system highest, followed by machine systems involving packing either on the machine or at a shed. Output per worker was increased from nearly 15 to 20 cartons per man-hour by replacing hand selecting and cutting with packing on the machine.

Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Labor and Human Capital; Production Economics; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 1977-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/307637/files/aer357.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:ags:uerser:307637

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.307637

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Agricultural Economic Reports from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().