Modern Plantation Agriculture

Outlines socio-economic trends in the plantation sector in developing countries. Examines plantation agriculture in Zimbabwe, focusing on the increasingly capital-intensive agricultural production of the 1980s.

Originally published in 1984, this was the first study to define and rationalise the character and functions of the plantation in the contemporary world. The author, Edgar Graham, was uniquely placed to do this having had long experience of Unilever's plantations in West Africa, Zaire, Malaysia and the Pacific. Writing as a pragmatist, from observed fact, his starting point was the fact that the 'modern plantation' bears very little resemblance to that of the past, on which most hostile accounts are still based. Two changes altered the very nature of the issue: First, the 20th Century plantation existed within an economic framework controlled by independent governments. Secondly, the rapid development in technology has revolutionised most aspects of plantation production. The result, it is argued, is that the modern plantation offers host governments the option of using this as the most efficient way of utilising available factors of production to provide a maximum social return. Exemplified by case studies, this study presents a powerful argument for the continue use of the plantation system when properly applied to a variety of tropical crops.

The conceptual, and historical perspectives; The current world perspective; Perspectives on specific crops.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the social, economic, and political landscape of Peru was transformed profoundly. Within a decade of the country’s disastrous defeat by Chile during the War of the Pacific, the export economy was recovering on the strength of a variety of agricultural and mineral products. The sugar industry played a pivotal role in this process and produced wealthy and socially ambitious families who became prominent political leaders on the national level. This study, based primarily on previously unavailable private records of sugarcane plantations, examines the external and internal dynamics of the sugar industry. It offers new insights into the process of land consolidation, the economics of sugar technology and production, the formation of the coastal elite, and the organization, recruitment, and control of labor. By focusing on the plantation Cayalti within a regional context, Gonzales presents one of the richest descriptions of the modern plantation for any region of Latin America. The book is a vivid social history of laborers from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, from Chinese to Peruvians of Indian, mestizo, and black heritage.

Plantation Crops Have Been Traditional Export Earners But Their Importance Declined When Industrial And Engineering Goods Become Major Export Products. Interest In Them Was Revived Through New Technology And Marketing Methods. Plantation Crop Development Is Another Way Of Containing The Environmental Deterioration Caused By The Modern Agro-Systems. Plantation And Forestry Could Go Hand In Hand And Could Develop What Is Called A Forestry-Plantation System: Plantation Development If It Is In Wasteland, Could Propagate Mixed Crop Species Along With Soil Conservation And Linkage With Other Sectors Thus Improving The Role Of Plantation Crops. Thous Coconut And Arecanut Are Classified As Palms, An Attempt Is Made In This Study To Include Them And Study Some Other Plantation Crops Like Cashewnut To The Development Of Agricultural And The Rural Sector In The Particular Region. The Study Is Divided Into Two Parts- Part I Comprising Coconut-Arecanut And Part Ii Cashewnut. Contents Part I; Chapter 1: Plantation Crops; Chapter 2: Introduction To Coconut-Arecanut Cultivation; Chapter 3: Coconut; Chapter 4: Coconut Cultivation In Dakshina Kannada; Chapter 5: Arecanut; Chapter 6: Paddy; Chapter 7: Cardamom, Pepper And Rubber; Chapter 8: Summary And Conclusion; Chapter 9: Energy And Economics In Tea Processing; Part Ii; Chapter 10: Some Problems Of Rural Development; Chapter 11: Cashewnut: An Introduction; Chapter 12: The Project; Chapter 13: Findings Of The Study; Chapter 14: Improved Cashew Cultivation; Chapter 15: Cashew Industry; Chapter 16: Cashew Apple; Chapter 17: Cashew: An Overview.