Sugar Cane in Hawaii and Taiwan: Contrasts in Ecology, Technology, and Economics

Abstract

wan dates back nearly a century and has long been a backbone of their respective economies. In Hawaii, sugar cane occupies two-thirds of the cultivated land, and its acreage has expanded some 10 per cent in the last 20 years (Fig. 1). In Taiwan, which is nearly twice the size of Hawaii, the cane area has fluctuated greatly in the post-war years. For the five-year period 19621966, cane acreage in Taiwan averaged 95,670 hectares which was comparable to that of Hawaii, but accounted for only 6 per cent of Taiwan's cultivated land. Practically all the sugar cane lands in Hawaii are owned by the 25 plantations, whereas in Taiwan 70 per cent of the sugar cane land is tilled by individual growers and the other 30 per cent by the government-owned Taiwan Sugar Corporation. Hawaii's sugar yield per hectare per year is second only to that of Peru. In the last 20 years, Hawaii's sugar yield has increased some 20 per cent, except for a drop in 1958 caused by a prolonged labor strike (Fig. 2). By contrast, the sugar yield in Taiwan, recovering from the damage of World War II, reached a peak in 1954 and declined slightly thereafter. For the five-year period 1962-1966 the sugar yield in Taiwan averaged 8.9 tons per hectare per year, or about 80 per cent of Hawaii's average yield of 11.0 tons per hectare per year. In addition to its high yields, sugar cane agriculture in Hawaii is renowned for its full-scale mechanization, extensive breeding program, effective pest and disease control, liberal application of herbicides and fertilizers, and other cultural practices often taken to be earmarks of scientific farming in a developed country. On the other hand, in spite of its dedicated research and intensive farming practices, agriculture in Taiwan is generally considered to be typical of that of an underdeveloped country in terms of farm income and level of technology. How can agriculture in an underdeveloped country be transformed to the level of that of a developed country? This paper attempts to answer this question by a comparison of the physical environments, economic structures, and farming technologies in the sugar industries in Hawaii and Taiwan.