ABSTRACT
This chapter examines several hypotheses concerning the cultural and organizational causes of variation in productivity among different farming units. These hypotheses relate to the roles played by family composition, social status and ethnicity—all of which affect access by the production unit to resources, land and labor. The chapter illustrates relationships between the nature of the production groups and the levels of agricultural production that must be taken into account in proposals for technological change. Agricultural production units were organized within the compounds, and each compound leader allocated land to the various production units within his compound, including his own farm. Preliminary analysis of the production data from the Koho sample farms indicated a great deal of variation in the amount of cereal produced per agricultural worker. The social status of the head of the production unit was found to be a major factor in agricultural production.
