China’s Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities

[Tronic]

I can't see it. Cheap labour or not, the time required is still the same. Paying a man 10 cents an hour or $100 an hour ain't going to change the time he needs to life 100lbs of wheat.

It may not change the time he needs, but it does change the time you need to be in the farms.. We hire folks to plough and cultivate the fields, to sow the crops, to keep up the feed (pesticides, herbicides), harvest, thresh the crops.. pretty much everything. Paying someone $100 an hour means most of the work has to be done by you, paying $.10 an hour means more people can be hired, meaning less work on your shoulders..

[xinhui]

That is where economy of scale comes/automation come in.

Folks will migrate to the city, like it or not. The government has the choice of engineering it or more slum will sprout up under their watchful eyes. Knowing the Chinese government, the always choice the former.

[bonehead]

About a dozen cows + my grandfather's horses. ~200 acres of combined family farmlands, divided with my uncles taking care of their own portions, that's ~50-60 acres each. Farming machinery, the norm, tractors, a combine, and the mounts, mechanized hitches, ploughs, etc.

I guess the main difference in India is probably the cheap labour. It is very easy to hire folks to do all the daily activities on the farm, so you don't realize the amount of work being put into the farm daily. Only busy times are during crop rotations when extra labour needs to be hired, so you have to be on the spot supervising. Otherwise, it's a pretty chilling job.

Those are comparatively small farms. When you get into thousands of acres you have a lot on your plate. Having many hands does lighten the load however most farmers I know have a deep vested interest in their land and have a self responsibility to do the work themselves or have family members work. The exception being harvest time. Then it is the more the merrier.

[bolo121]

About a dozen cows + my grandfather's horses. ~200 acres of combined family farmlands, divided with my uncles taking care of their own portions, that's ~50-60 acres each. Farming machinery, the norm, tractors, a combine, and the mounts, mechanized hitches, ploughs, etc.

I guess the main difference in India is probably the cheap labour. It is very easy to hire folks to do all the daily activities on the farm, so you don't realize the amount of work being put into the farm daily. Only busy times are during crop rotations when extra labour needs to be hired, so you have to be on the spot supervising. Otherwise, it's a pretty chilling job.

Wow. land, horses and cattle. Impressive, so your family is pretty much the local Zamindar?
Me+my family own exactly 2 small flats in bangalore which we could only afford cause the nasty it boom hadnt hit back then.