PRODUCTIVITY may be measured in terms of output per worker or per unit of resources, such as output per hectare. Higher production per unit of area over a given period of time generally means that production per worker is raised, although productivity per worker and per hectare do not necessarily march in step. Production per hectare may be increased by intensive methods without raising labor productivity, and mechanization or rationalization of work methods may raise labor productivity without necessarily raising total production or production per hectare.
However, the importance of research and extension in relation to raising productivity is obvious. The inherent difficulty of matching in agriculture and forestry the technological and organizational achievements of concentrated industry, serves to emphasize the tremendous importance of a good extension system to bring the results of research to operators and workers.
An attempt to do just this in regard to logging and primary sawmilling is represented by the demonstration center created in Brazil by an FAO technical assistance mission, and located at Santarem 500 kilometers up the Amazon river and about half way between Belem and Manaus. The Director-General of FAO formally opened this center, which is shown in the photograph above, in August last. The Brazilian Minister of Agriculture and many other officials attended the ceremony. Brought into being through the persistent efforts of the FAO technical assistance team, this center is designed to demonstrate the most efficient techniques for getting timber economically out of the forests of the Amazon and converted on the saw bench. It follows a somewhat similar center established at Llancacura, Chile, some time ago.
Another example of extension efforts is afforded by the recent meeting of the ECE/FAO Committee on Logging Techniques and Training of Forest Workers which was held in Moscow in September of this year.
Specialists from 20 countries, members of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe's Timber Committee or of FAO's European Forestry Commission, together with representatives from a number of international organizations, joined in a 10-days' tour of areas of the Soviet Union to study the country's forest working techniques at first hand.
The Committee, at this its second session, approved a series of practical measures to promote the sharing of information on the techniques used by different countries in forest work and to facilitate the introduction of internationally agreed norms and standards. In this way, it seeks to assist timber producers to increase the yields from forest work. An international scheme for tractor testing on a comparable basis was drafted, and preparations will go ahead to draft similar protocols for other types of forest machinery, such as power saws, barking machines, winches and chippers. The members exchanged experience on comparing the economics of various degrees of mechanization, analyzing mechanized forest operations from a technological point of view, and on the correct maintenance and use of mechanized forest equipment.
A number of conclusions were endorsed in the reports prepared by the International Labour Organisation on Occupational Safety and Health in Forest Operations, intended to raise standards of safety and health in logging. ILO was asked to draw up an international code of good forest practices, embodying approved safety directives for forest undertakings and forest workers. The Organisation's fellowship scheme for forest workers was highly commended.
All this serves towards raising productivity per worker, and it is this productivity, as measured by the value placed on the products of his work in the market, that ultimately determines the level of income per worker.
FIGURE 1. Loading chips pneumatically into a railway box car.
FIGURE 2. Loading chips onto a scow British Columbia.
