CHAPTER XI. SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT OF HORN PROCESSING
Whether for religious, cultural, economic or environmental
reasons, horn has been considerably exploited and processed through the
centuries by various civilisations.
Today, horn processing is still a widespread traditional
activity in many countries, although on a very small scale. Paradoxically, there
is no simple method of assessing the socio-economic impact of this craft partly
because horn processing is usually a marginal activity and thus hardly
perceptible in terms of revenue or job creation. An assessment still remains to
be made.
The main purpose of this handbook is to introduce the
technological aspects of horn processing in an easily understandable form, so as
to facilitate the development of this activity. It has not been possible, owing
to a lack of reliable data, to indicate the cost, price and sales price of the
articles produced or the employment generated.
We believed it would be useful, however, to provide readers with
a few basic data that would enable them to estimate the production cost of the
articles described in this handbook. Machine time and labour requirements are
given for small-scale manufacture of horn products (maximum 10 articles). For a
non-mechanised workshop where all operations are manual, the times indicated in
the table are to be multiplied by five to obtain the equivalent machine time.
To determine the cost price of electrical appliances (lamps,
wall lights), the cost of electrical inputs (contact sockets, wires, plugs and
switches) must be added to the production cost.
BASIC DATA FOR CALCULATING THE COST PRICE OF HORN PRODUCTS
