agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

, custom harvesting or custom combining is the business of harvesting of

crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydropon ...

s for others. Custom harvesters usually own their own combines and work for the same

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used ...

s every harvest season. Custom harvesting relieves

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

s from having to invest capital in expensive equipment while at the same time maximizing the machinery's use. The custom harvesting industry has its roots in the mid-twentieth century. Before the invention of the combine harvester,

s usually owned their own harvesting machinery and worked in tandem with

migrant worker A migrant worker is a person who migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have the intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work. Migrant workers who work outsi ...

s, who would bring their own

threshing Threshing, or thrashing, is the process of loosening the edible part of grain (or other crop) from the straw to which it is attached. It is the step in grain preparation after reaping. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain. History ...

equipment. As combines became more and more widespread, the demand for migrant labor decreased. Custom harvesters, owning their own combines, existed beginning in the 1920s, albeit on a small scale. However,

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

caused a labor and materials shortage, and the custom harvesting industry experienced a great growth. In North America, the area from

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

was heavily traversed by custom harvesters. In 1942, there were approximately 500 such operators in this range, but by 1947 that number had grown to 8,000 in

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

alone. Over the years, the industry transformed from one being run solely by men into family-run businesses. Harvesters would pass their routes and clients down to their children, thus turning custom combining into family tradition. Custom combiners charge for their services in several ways: a flat per-unit of land price, a per-bale price, or a percentage of the crop. One of the biggest problems for farmers who hire custom harvesters is the availability of labor and the timing of the harvest. If the harvester cannot be available right when the crops are ready, there is the risk of low harvest (if too early) or spoilage (if too late). The number of custom harvesters has dropped in modern times due to a number of reasons. For one, the consolidation of farms into large-scale operations has allowed them to operate on

economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...

such that they do not need to rely on contractors.

Competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indiv ...

is another reason. In China, custom harvesting became such a popular profession in the late 20th century that too many people entered the industry and prices became too low to generate a profit.

References

{{reflist Agricultural labor

See also

References