Question

Describe the characteristics of plantation farming?

Answer 1

The tropical plantation is one of the world’s oldest systems of commercial agriculture. Since 1500 AD, the products from over a dozen tropical crops have been in constant demand by people in the temperate regions.

The specialised commercial cultivation of cash crops on estates or plantations is a very distinctive type of tropical agriculture and is found in many parts of Asia, Africa and tropical and sub-tropical America.

Its initiation by the Europeans during the colonial period has made possible the manufacture of a wide range of modern materials. Some of the main plantation crops are rubber, oil palm, cotton and copra, beverages like coffee, tea and cocoa, fruits like pineapples and bananas, as well as sugarcane, hemp and jute.

Plantation agriculture is the product of colonialism. Plantations have been developed in response to a demand in Europe for foods, spices, fibers, and beverages, which because of climatic constraints, could be produced only in the tropics or sub-tropics. Over the centuries the demand for most of these items has increased with the growth of world population and with the insatiable needs of modern western society.

Plantation agriculture is an export-oriented specialised farming method where emphasis is given to raise a single crop – specially meant for export to the overseas countries. It is a large enterprise with sound infrastructure, where profit is the sole objective. It involves not only culti­vation of crop but also processing, packaging, transporting and exporting of the product.

Location:

Plantation agriculture is confined within tropical areas, i.e., both sides of the equator. Plantations exist on every continent possessing a tropical climate. The plantation system however is considerably older in tropical America than in Asia and Africa. The tropical areas of Latin America, Asia and Africa are the areas where plantation agriculture has been developed.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Some of the important plantation farming are coffee plantation in Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, Tanzania, Kenya; sugarcane plantation in Cuba, Brazil, Peru, Puerto Rico and Philippines; tea plantation in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia; cocoa farming in West Indies, Ecuador, Brazil, Nigeria, Ghana; rubber plantation in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indi?; banana plantation in Mexico, Jamaica, Columbia, Brazil, Panama and Costa Rico 

Answer 2

Characteristics of plantation farming:

A specific type of plant and crop is grown in a big piece of land is understand as plantation farming.

These are the following "characteristics of plantation farming":

1. It is single crop farming which is cultivated in a large area.
2. These "types of crops" are mainly grown for export.
3. It is done according to both labors intensive and capital intensive.
4. Plantation farming has interface of both Industry and agriculture.
5. it is based on specializing the single crop production.