13.2.7: Plantation Agriculture

Plantation Agriculture

In many coastal regions of the developing world, especially where European colonial powers once ruled, plantation agriculture is the dominant style of farming. In this agricultural system, agricultural land is dedicated to growing cash crops, generally at the expense of staple crops. Some of the more popular plantation crops are bananas, cotton, tea, cacao trees, and coffee.

There are multiple, serious problems with the plantation agricultural systems, but most countries find it difficult to develop viable, profitable alternatives. Many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America rely on plantation-style agriculture because they have no other industry capable of earning much needed foreign currency like US Dollars or Euros. An over-reliance on cash crops can lead to food insecurity – or famine. When all the best farmlands in a country are planted with export-oriented cash crops, the production of food for local consumption is diminished. Secondly, many plantation regions are guilty of monocropping, the practice of relying on a single crop. Not only are monoculture economies vulnerable to crop failure (e.g., insect invasions, diseases, droughts, etc.), they can be devastated by unpredictable swings in market prices for their product. The US has regions where monoculture is common, but the US economy is diverse and can easily withstand the failure of a single crop or commodity market. Many developing economies do not have this luxury. If the market price for the main farm commodity falls, or a blight attacks the main crop, the entire economy can be in trouble and the burden of such failures always falls on the poor, especially those working on plantations.

Figure: Coffee Prices, like many other agricultural commodities, are prone to dramatic changes in price, supply and demand. Unpredictable economic conditions are a result. Source: Financial Times

Commodity prices can fall when too many competitors join a market, bloating the supply and crashing the price. Coffee, in particular, has seen wild price swings since the 1960s. One cause of the famous Latin American Debt Crisis of the 1980s was a collapse of export agricultural commodity prices at the same time as a spike in world oil prices that caused a global recession.

Plantation agriculture is also responsible for most of the nearly intractable land tenure problems that plague many countries engaged in plantation agriculture. During the 18th and 19th century, colonial powers like England and Spain robbed indigenous people of their land and forced them to work on plantations. Others became peasants, confined to marginal lands least desired by the colonial, landed elites. In many cases, families of elites and peasants continued in their roles for many generations, and in the process, created both a permanent underclass and a landed oligarchy. Violent clashes between socialist or communist land reform advocates and capitalists who favored the status quo erupted frequently during the 20th century, especially in Latin America. The economic hopelessness and violence that plantation agriculture spawned spurred migration. In Latin America, those fleeing plantation economies came to the United States, where opponents of land reform efforts in Latin America simultaneously oppose immigration from Latin America.

Because plantation agriculture is often highly competitive, and sometimes a highly profitable endeavor, efficiency is a paramount concern. Large plantation operations take advantage of economies of scale that small-hold farming cannot, so there is significant pressure from the market, and the agribusiness corporations who own large plantation, to ensure that massive farms continue to use the best farmlands in a country. In those rare instances where land reform has taken place, and highly productive agribusiness farmlands were redistributed to the poor; the export economy has faltered, and economic chaos ensued. Zimbabwe’s land redistribution is the classic modern example.

WE ARE THE WORLD

In the mid-1980s, a drought, war, and bad governmental policies in the Horn of Africa led to one of the great humanitarian crises of the modern era. Famine struck Eritrea and Ethiopia causing an estimated half-million deaths. A documentary news crew broadcast the tragedy back to the rest of the world, shocking many into action. Two of the better-known charity relief efforts came from pop and rock musicians. Live Aid, Band Aid and USA for Africawere efforts launched by famous music acts to raise money and awareness of the crisis. Donations poured in because people believed that the crisis was largely the result of a natural disaster. Few knew that during this great famine, Ethiopia remained a net exporter of food. Grain and other agricultural commodities were being shipped from Ethiopia around the world, often as animal feed, while thousands within the country starved. Transportation and safety issues were partly to blame, but in the end, the Ethiopian famine was caused by a land tenure crisis and poverty as much as drought and desertification. When poor people can’t grow food, they often cannot buy food either. The aid money that poured in did help some in the region, but corrupt local officials likely siphoned off much of the food aid intended for the truly needy.

Figure: Philadelphia, PA. Live Aid was a significant cultural event raising awareness of African famine. Though money and awareness were raised, most involved failed to understand the economics and politics behind the famine. Source: Wikimedia

Agricultural Landscapes

The United States has more arable land than any other country. If you drove around the US, about half of what you would see out your window would be farmland of some sort. About 400 million acres within the US are planted in crops, and over 600 million are used to graze livestock. Those numbers have been shrinking by about 3,000 acres per year, as suburbs and commercial developments gobble up farmland (EPA). Still, farming remains extremely important both as an economic activity and as a hidden element in our daily existence. So, reading the landscapes of farming is a valuable skill for the well-educated citizen.

Cadastral Patterns

If you’re flying over the US, looking out the window of the plane and paying attention, you’ll notice a variety of cadastral patterns, which reflect are the various systems the government has used to divide the land among people. Cadastral systems are most evident in farm country, but they also affect the division of land in cities. The patterns created by the various land division schemes both reflect and shape our politics, culture, and economy. There are several cadastral systems used worldwide, but in the US, only a few merit our attention.

Metes and Bounds

English settlers introduced the metes and bounds cadastral system during the colonial period. Generally, those who wished to obtain land during the 17th and 18th century would scout a piece of unclaimed land, perhaps near the town where they lived or on the frontier, and upon finding a suitable location they would hire a surveyor to inspect the land and write a description of the desired plot of land. This description constituted a legal claim to the land that was in turn registered with government authorities. The shape and size of the land parcels were quite random, often described using very local landmarks, like trees, boulders, or streams. Here’s an example:

Beginning at a stone on the Bank of Doe River, at a point where the highway from A. to B. crosses said river (see point marked C. on Diagram 1); thence 40 degrees North of West 100 rods to a large stump; then 10 degrees North of West 90 rods; thence 15 degrees West of North 80 rods to an oak tree (see Witness Tree on Diagram 1); then due East 150 rods to the highway; thence following the course of the highway 50 rods due North; then 5 degrees North of East 90 rods; thence 45 degrees of South 60 rods; thence 10 degrees North of East 200 rods to the Doe River; thence following the course of the river Southwesterly to the place of beginning. Source: surveyhistory.org

Figure: Diagram of the land parcel described by the passage quoted below. Note the highly irregular outline. Source: Virtual Museum of Surveying.

In the regions of the country using metes and bounds, local property maps eventually came to look like a huge jigsaw puzzle, as waves of settlers made claims to unoccupied plots of land. The irregularity of this land division system created numerous problems, not the least of which was the difficulty in determining property lines demarcated by moveable objects like trees, rocks, and streams.

Metes and bounds also contributed to an unfair distribution of quality farmland. People that arrived early to a location on the frontier often carved out parcels of high-quality land for themselves, leaving poorer quality land for latecomers. Often, those who carved out choice parcels were wealthy land speculators, the surveyors themselves, or politically well connected people. Once in possession of the best lands, they stood to dominate local politics and the local economy. Many land speculators, made fortunes buying up choice lands early and cheaply, then selling them to those arriving later the frontier.

Today, so-called “house flippers” engage a similar business model. People who arrived late to the frontier often found available parcels of land were of poor quality and expensive. In some places, this exacerbated class distinctions because the quality of farm fields varied greatly. Colonial tobacco farming regions were especially vulnerable to this condition because tobacco plants quickly exhaust the soil. Farmers with poor soil and without adequate farmlands to leave some fields fallow would soon face bankruptcy, only to be bought out by wealthier neighbors who were bought, or inherited, prime farmlands earlier.

Figure: Ross County, Ohio. The region west of the Scioto River is the Virginia Military District. It uses meters and bounds. East of the river, the township and range system is used. Note the stark difference in pattern. Think about the implications these patterns have upon the culture, politics and economics of each region. Data courtesy of Ross County GIS (Greg Rouse)

Township and Range –Grid Squares

Thomas Jefferson recognized several problems with the metes and bounds system, so he introduced the township and range cadastral system, officially known as the Public Land Survey System, as a logical, well-ordered replacement for metes and bounds that divided land using a rectangular grid system. Jefferson hoped that if each farm family moving to the frontier could buy a farmstead of roughly the same size as all his/her neighbors, as long as the quality of that land was reasonably similar, a robust middle class of yeoman farmers would emerge, invigorating democracy.

Figure: San Joaquin Valley, CA. Multiple political ideas and government policies are evident on this farming landscape in arid California.

Deeply in debt following the War for Independence, but flush with land acquired from the British in the war, the continental congress passed into law Jefferson’s idea as the Land Ordinance of 1785. This law has since regulated the sale of most of American land west of the Appalachian Mountains. It allowed homesteaders to buy land without seeing it first, did not require complex surveying and description, and sped up the settlement of the frontier.

The basic unit of division in the grid system is the township, a square parcel of land six miles wide. Townships were sub-divided first into 36 one-square-mile parcels called sections. Square mile sections (640 acres) were subdivided further into quarter sections (160 acres) and quarter-quarter sections of forty acres. Homesteaders generally purchased quarter sections where rain was plentiful. But where the climate is drier, and ranching displaced farming, larger parcels were more common.

The grid square dominates the American landscape. It’s hard to overstate the impact of this system. Roads, farmlands, houses, property lines, telephone poles are just but a few items on the landscape locked onto “the grid”. Even the room you’re in now, along with your desk, couch, or chest of drawers, is probably aligned with Jefferson’s grid. The brilliant landscape essayist JB Jackson argued that the grid is a grand symbol of the kind of thinking that characterized the Age of Enlightenment while also affecting the cultural practices in regions dominated by the grid, perhaps imparting a sense of order and conformity to communities locked into the grid. Even the personal insult “square” that refers to persons who are orderly and conformist may be tied to the pervasiveness of the grid.

In much of New England, the land was divided very differently. Colonial-era communal style agricultural villages were centered on village greens. These were abandoned in the Midwest and far west, and communal agriculture gave way to independent farming – a type of individualism encouraged by the grid. The implications are profound in terms of the political and economic philosophies characterizing modern American politics. Chapter 8 explores more deeply the competing political philosophies deeply associated with the various US cadastral systems.

Jefferson’s cultural and political goals have been mostly realized. Democracy did indeed flourish, and to this day, the region of the country with the most equitable distribution of wealth remains where the township and range system created innumerable farmsteads of roughly equal size and equal quality. Interestingly, the Gini coefficient, a measure of income equality, is generally lowest in the grid-dominated states of the Midwest where the middle class remains large.

Figure: Fayette County, Ohio - Section 16 in many townships was given to the local school district to generate school funding and to provide space for a local school. Abandoned one-room school houses like this dot the rural landscapes of the Midwest.

Perhaps the only disadvantage to the grid system is that it seems to encourage farmers to plow their fields in straight lines, regardless of the topography of the fields, a practice that increases soil erosion and water loss, compared to the more eco-friendly contour plowing practiced more frequently by farmers living on metes and bounds lands in the East.

Long Lots

Colonists from other parts of Europe, especially the French, introduced the Long Lots cadastral system. Derived from the seigneurial land tenure system used by the French in their colonial holdings (mostly in what is now Canada), it was replicated in elsewhere in North America where French settlement occurred, most notably Louisiana, but you can find evidence of Long Lots near other French settlements like St. Louis, Detroit, and Vincennes, Indiana. Long lots are narrow parcels of land, typically one-tenth as wide as long, with one of the narrow ends generally bordering a transportation corridor, generally a river or stream.

Figure: Saint James Parish, LA. Long lot cadastral patterns create numerous ribbon farms along the Mississippi River. This land division system profoundly affects the road network, housing and perhaps even social and cultural systems. Note the equal access to the river (and now highway). Data courtesy of St. James Parish GIS.

The political implications of long lots are like Jefferson’s grid because each property owner had a roughly equal chance to succeed in the regional farming economy. Access to transportation (e.g., a river) was a crucial element for farmers hoping to sell their crops. Dividing land in this fashion also insured farmers reasonably equal access to quality farmland. Soil characteristics near rivers differ by distance from the riverbank. Sandier Soils are often found near the river. High-quality loamy soils are found at an intermediate distance from the river, and in the bottomlands more distant from the riverbank, less desirable, clay-rich soils are more common. Farmers in this system commonly arranged farm activities to mimic the spatial logic of Von Thünen’s model presented earlier in the chapter. Can you apply the logic of the Von Thünen model to a long lot? Long lots create cultural conditions as well. Because families built their houses near the river, neighbors lived close to one another. The French also divided family holdings evenly among all children (or just males) upon the death of a family elder, resulting in the creation of additional narrow strip farms, each with a house at the riverfront after each successive generation. You’ll remember from Chapter 2, that shotgun houses may have become more popular in part because they fit nicely on long lot style land parcels.