Agriculture in the Caribbean

Abstract

The Anglo-American Caribbean Commission was set up in 1942 to encourage social and economic co-operation between the United States of America and its possessions and bases in the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom and the British Colonies in the same area. In 1945, the Governments of France and the Netherlands accepted an invitation to join this body, which has since become known as the Caribbean Commission. The committee set up by its Research Council to deal with problems connected with agriculture, nutrition, fisheries and forestry has circulated a number of crop inquiries to the various agricultural departments and is issuing a series of publications based on the replies. “Grain Crops in the Caribbean”, the third in the series, is now available on request from the Caribbean Research Council, Caribbean Commission, Kent House, Port of Spain, Trinidad, B.W.I. For four hundred years the agricultural systems have been largely based on single-crop agriculture for the export market. The obvious dangers of this policy and the advantages of diverse cropping have been repeatedly pointed out, and the cessation of rice imports from Burma and India during the War forced attention on the necessity for producing more food for home consumption and the desirability of encouraging inter-Caribbean trade. With the exception of rice in the Guianas and maize in British Honduras and Jamaica, both acreage and production of grain crops are normally very small. Methods of cultivation are primitive, manures are rarely used and losses are heavy owing to inadequate storage facilities. The general conclusion from the inquiry, however, is that though greater attention to fundamental research is of the utmost importance, the introduction of machinery and the application of existing knowledge could immediately bring about a substantial increase in grain production without reducing the acreage devoted to export crops.