I looked over the figures. The benchmarks you have set are certainly ambitious. I wonder whether there are perhaps a few other factors which have not been included in your calculations?
As I understand it from recent demographic and work studies (see Resnick and Spilling -- I'll put the report on your desk), the relationship between food cut (and thus lowered budget) is not exactly 1:1 when it comes to diminished work capacity. Cutting the food budget by 5% will not cut output by 5%. More like 7%. The amplifying effect skews to an ever greater slope as cuts go deeper. Cut food by 10% and output goes down 13%. Cut by 15% and output drops 19%, etc.
Also, cutting over 20% definitely takes a toll on the immune system. Your costs will rise as you will be treating more disease, perhaps even deaths among the young and the old. Don't forget that disease can spread from one camp to others, as happened in the Black's epidemic--or even to the citizen (wizarding) population.
There's also an increased management risk. Hungry people become angry. That may mean more sabotage, perhaps even more camp breakouts. It will mean increased overtime for camp staff, which will in turn raise costs.
Perhaps decreasing the amount of food could be mitigated somewhat if you're increasing the quality. If you wish to serve less turnips and potatoes, then increase fruit, vegetables and meat. That might decrease both anger and diminished work capacity. A boost to the protein in the diets would certainly be beneficial in getting more work out of the labour force.
Of course, adding in a small amount of expensive food while you're cutting cheap plentiful food may mean the whole thing's a wash, budgetwise.
You might also consider that waiting to launch this experiment might be more successful, simply because winter is coming. If you cut calories now, more people will be expend more energy keeping themselves warm, which will diminish their ability to work. Especially where calories are cut the must, they very well might succumb to hypothermia, frostbite, etc. That danger could be avoided if you simply wait until next spring to cut the animal feed.
no subject
As I understand it from recent demographic and work studies (see Resnick and Spilling -- I'll put the report on your desk), the relationship between food cut (and thus lowered budget) is not exactly 1:1 when it comes to diminished work capacity. Cutting the food budget by 5% will not cut output by 5%. More like 7%. The amplifying effect skews to an ever greater slope as cuts go deeper. Cut food by 10% and output goes down 13%. Cut by 15% and output drops 19%, etc.
Also, cutting over 20% definitely takes a toll on the immune system. Your costs will rise as you will be treating more disease, perhaps even deaths among the young and the old. Don't forget that disease can spread from one camp to others, as happened in the Black's epidemic--or even to the citizen (wizarding) population.
There's also an increased management risk. Hungry people become angry. That may mean more sabotage, perhaps even more camp breakouts. It will mean increased overtime for camp staff, which will in turn raise costs.
Perhaps decreasing the amount of food could be mitigated somewhat if you're increasing the quality. If you wish to serve less turnips and potatoes, then increase fruit, vegetables and meat. That might decrease both anger and diminished work capacity. A boost to the protein in the diets would certainly be beneficial in getting more work out of the labour force.
Of course, adding in a small amount of expensive food while you're cutting cheap plentiful food may mean the whole thing's a wash, budgetwise.
You might also consider that waiting to launch this experiment might be more successful, simply because winter is coming. If you cut calories now, more people will be expend more energy keeping themselves warm, which will diminish their ability to work. Especially where calories are cut the must, they very well might succumb to hypothermia, frostbite, etc. That danger could be avoided if you simply wait until next spring to cut the animal feed.