Agroindustrial project analysi

THE PROCESSING FACTOR 129season. Finding ways to increase full use of project capacity isimportant not only for increasing the revenue-generating period ofthe investment but also for reducing the adverse socioeconomicconsequences of seasonal unemployment.Management capabilityAnother criterion for technology selection is the fit of the technologywith the enterprise's managerial resources. Managerialtalent is often scarce in developing countries, particularly at thesupervisory level. Technology selection can minimize the supervisoryburden, perhaps by substituting machines for those parts of aprocess that require the most intensive supervision. (The qualificationsregarding tradeoffs between capital and labor made earlier,however, would then apply.) Skilled technicians are also scarce,and so the maintenance and repair requirements of equipment mustbe carefully assessed. Highly sophisticated agroindustrial equipmenthas often ended up idle because of a plant's deficient maintenancecapacity.Nutritional consequencesA commonly overlooked criterion in technology selection is theprocessing method's effect on the nutritional value of food products."4 In general, food processors have shown little interest in thenutritional content of their products because they have not thoughtthat consumers consider nutritional value to be of major importancein their purchasing decisions. 1 5 Yet technology can have a significanteffect on the nutritional value of foods, and the analyst ofagroindustrial projects should give explicit attention to this aspectof technology selection. Food technologists and nutritionists canprovide technical information for the analysis of a product's nutri-14. The author expresses appreciation to Dr. Sam Yong for his researchassistance in developing this section.15. See James E. Austin, "Can Nutrition Sell?," The Professional Nutritionist,vol. 8, no. 3 (September 8, 1976), pp. 12-15; "Marketing Nutrition,"Cereal Foods World (November 1977), vol. 22, no. 11, pp. 567-71; and ConfrontingUrban Malnutrition: The Design of Nutrition Programs, World BankStaff Occasional Papers, no. 28 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,1980), pp. 36-43.