Labor Pains: Valuing Seasonal versus Year-Round Labor on Organic Farms

Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 2009, vol. 34, issue 2, 16

Abstract: Although organic farm activities seem to demand year-round employees, seasonal workers dominate the organic labor market. We use the elasticity of complementarity to assess input substitutability and predict adjustments. Farm size and farm workers are complementary inputs. Incentives that encourage farmers to expand employment of year-round and seasonal workers raise the marginal product and rates of return to organic acreage in relative wage payments. A commitment to local sales reduces organic farm incomes. A shift to local sales leads to decreased use of seasonal workers but at higher wages, with smaller adjustments in the wages of year-round workers.

Keywords: Labor; and; Human; Capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/54549/files/JARE_Aug09__06R_pp316-331.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:jlaare:54549

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.54549

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics from Western Agricultural Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().