Relationship Between Farm Land Structure and Machine Operation in Korea

The shortage of agricultural labour due to industrial growth has greatly induced the mechanization in Korean agriculture. However small and scattered land holdings have been the main constraints in the process of mechanization. This paper describes the interrelationships of farm land structure, machinery selection and machinery operation areas. The sandy silt loam irrigated paddy land having single crop a year was selected as a target areas for this study. Machine operation cost is greatly influenced by operation period, plot geometry and operation area. On the improved geometry plots, optimal machine size increases slowly with increase in operation area. Operable area increases due to increased effective machine capacity on better geometry plot. The difference between the effects of operation period and plot geometry is that in the former case, the cost reduction is caused by delay in increase of machine size, whereas in the latter case timeliness cost is reduced by increase ffective capacity. The effect of farmland consolidation is greater on small plots than that on big plots. Increasing wage rates have induced the adoption of more labor saving machinery. Bigger labor saving machines require enlargement of operation area and larger plots through improvement in farm land structure. Machine cost on poor plot geometry increases more rapidly than that on the good plot geometry and as operation area increases machine cost reduces significantly. It is concluded that the development of agricultural mechanization ion Korea will depend on the improvement in farm land structure and enlargement of operation area.