Human Labour in Pre-industrial Agriculture

REVIEW OF UNIT 7: HUMAN LABOUR IN PRE-INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE
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(06, December, 2010)
Human Labour in Pre-industrial Agriculture
Introduction
This is a critical review paper that clarifies themes and ideas that are discussed on the articles covering on the micro demographic perspectives on food, population and traditional farming in pre-industrial era (Wood, 2010). It also reviews on the nature of the household labor forces and its ability to respond to the house hold food consumption needs of the traditional rural populations. Finally, the issues of environmental unpredictability and its demographic costs in the household demographic enterprise are reviewed.
Micro demography is defined as the study of population with a specific focus on the individuals at the household level while demographic anthropology is the study of mostly pre-industrial or rural developing-world populations.
Article Review
One of the themes discussed is the article is the traditional farming and its defining features. Traditional farming is a pre-industrial form of agriculture characterized by absence of utilization of steam power and fossil fuels in its operations. Traditional farming is characterized by its absolute dependency on human and animal power in its farming processes which are often limited by transport costs. Traditional farming is predominantly managed and organized at a household level and thus is family farms primarily owned by members of very close kinship (Chayanov, 1966). In addition, traditional farms are intended to sufficiently meet the consumption needs of the household which in many cases extremely vary from year to year hence viewed as a demographic enterprise as it is a work that involves many risks and hazardous undertakings in its day to day operations.
In traditional household, its labour force is mainly provided by the kin: wives, children, elderly parents, siblings and their dependents thus hiring and firing of workers is seen as an inhuman irrational act (Kramer, 2005). Subsistence farmer`s ultimate and modest goal is to create and support a family though such goals are often frustrated by environmental uncertainty, partial information, ins...