Plantations and Economic Development in the Twentieth Century: The End of an Era?
Derek Byerlee and
P. K. Viswanathan
Additional contact information
Derek Byerlee: Georgetown University
P. K. Viswanathan: Amrita University
Chapter 4 in Agricultural Development in the World Periphery, 2018, pp 89-117 from Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Abstract After a shameful period of forced labour and colonial exploitation, a modern plantation system emerged during the twentieth century, akin to a near-industrial form of production of tropical commodities. Chapter 4 reviews the experience of plantations over the twentieth century, mainly for bananas, oil palm, rubber, sugar cane and tea, with particular attention to the political economy of plantations versus smallholders, infringement of land rights inherent in large land concessions, and the rights and welfare of the large labour force employed. The chapter concludes that large plantations that were the norm at the beginning of that century had largely given way to smallholders by the early twenty-first century and this trend is likely to continue. Land rights of communities on the frontier remain imperfectly recognised while labour rights and conditions on plantations vary widely depending on country and commodity.
Keywords: Plantation system; Tropical commodities; Smallholders (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)
There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-319-66020-2_4
Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9783319660202
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-66020-2_4
Access Statistics for this chapter
More chapters in Palgrave Studies in Economic History from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().