This is the main reason why most people thing producing Maize in large quantity is tedious work, especially where labourers are scare or there is less mechanized system to support reduce the manual work. In more advanced Countries where mechanization is well structured, this wouldn't be a problem. Since they have combined harvesting which harvest, de-hask, thresh and even do the bagging into sacks. So, only one person can execute 200 hectares of maize farm a day,that would be quite large number of people's work. I don't thing in Ghana here, combined harvesters are common, with the exception of the state farms where maizes and rices are cultivated in a large scale. The cost effective is really high owning such farm implement, unless otherwise the farm size is very large.
Those farmers where own about 100, 200, 400 or 500 acres of land for maize farming even use manual way of harvesting. If that happens, the farm need more labourers to complete harvesting the whole size of the farm. It makes harvesting become more labour intensive. In addition to this, there are more extra work that goes beyond harvesting. Something like gathering, conveying the dried cobs to heap at one place and final conveyance to the storage of silo point. The whole thing look very tedious. But we do forget all these boring nature after getting the grains and profits from the produce.
Well, all these are cost of production, either you hired labourers to harvest or you did the harvesting yourself. It depends on the size of the farmlands. For my case, the size of my land is just an acre and there is no need to hire a labourer for the harvesting. I began today by harvesting. I went to the farm early dawn. To have my maizes cut and scooping the dried cobs which contain the grains. Where I would need people to help was the gathering of the cobs at one place. The Youtube video displayed my activity of harvesting:
In fact it took me about 3 hours for me to complete half of the farm. I first sharpened my cutlass to enable me have good cut without stressing myself. The harvesting is done by cutting the stem of the maize and finally cutting the stalk of the cobs that attach to the stem. This was done gradually. The individual dried cobs were first heaped in smaller groups at different places in the farm. I invited some Guys to come and help me gather all the smaller heaped cobs at the centre of the farm using baskets or basins that can convey them. I just placed phone for them to come. This was at the time I had harvested more of the cobs onto the ground. They began to convey the harvested cobs at one places. This made my work very easy for me.
My Guys helping to gather all the maize cobs at one place
By the time I finished harvesting the maize, they had almost finished heaping all at one place. I helped they to gather and heap them properly.
Heaping the maize at one place. This is just some part that I have harvested
I then cut banana leaves to cover the heaped maize in case there would be rain over the night, the cobs wouldn't be affected with the rain. Keeping the heaped maize in the farm for long time isn't safe since termites can enter and destroy the grains. But, the heaped would be here for temporal period so that when I finish harvesting all, I'll get some vehicle to convey them to my house.
Covering the heaped maize with banana leaves to prevent rain from entry
I am done for today and would continue tomorrow if I get chance. Thanks for your attention.