Agroindustrial project analysi

124 AGROINDUSTRIAL PROJECT ANALYSISTable 4-2. Patterns of Rice and Maize Processingin Thailand, 1975, and Guatemala, 1973PercentageCountry Processed in mills Pounded in homeThailand(province)Ayuthya 100 0Cahyaphum 88 12Kalasin 100 0Phichit 99 1Phrae 99 1Songkhla 85 15Guatemala(region)Rural highlands 99 1Rural East 98 2Rural South 98 2Semi-urban 99 1Source: James E. Austin (ed.), Global Malnutrition(Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1979).and Cereal Fortificationsame output,' there are many possibilities for increasing labor intensitywithout a firm's becoming economically inferior. Possibleapproaches to be considered by analysts would include the selectionof labor-intensive production stages within the agroindustrial system,as in the example of the leather industries, above; the choiceof products that are more labor intensive; or the separation of theunalterable aspects of technology, in which the substitution ofcapital for labor is dictated by process or market requirements,from the nonessential aspects, in which substitution is dictated bylabor costs or management preferences. 6 The analyst should alsorealize that there are numerous technological options and machine-5. See, for example, Richard S. Eckaus, "The Factor Proportions Problemin Underdeveloped Areas," The American Economic Review, vol. 50, no. 2(May 1960), pp. 642-48.6. For a Marxian perspective on substitution, see G. E. Skorov (Instituteof World Economy and International Relations, USSR Academy of Sciences),Science, Technology, and Economic Growth in Developing Countries (London:Pergamon Press, 1978), pp. 87-94; for a critique of this perspective, seeDeepak Lal, Men or Machines (Geneva: International Labour Organisation,1978), Appendix A, pp. 59-62.