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Caribbean Islands Crops
Sugar continued to be the most important cash crop despite the
overwhelming structural problems that the sugar industry faced. As
late as the 1880s, there existed over 300 independent sugar
plantations on Trinidad; a century later, however, the industry was
completely dominated by one state-run firm, Caroni Sugar Company.
The government bought a 51-percent share of Caroni from the near
monopoly of Tate and Lyle in 1971; within five years, the
enterprise was fully government owned. By the mid-1980s, Caroni
merged with the government's joint- venture Orange Grove, making
Caroni almost a complete monopoly.
Although the sugar industry hit a forty-five-year low in 1984,
output did recover somewhat in the late 1980s. Nonetheless, the
industry continued to face several major obstacles to long-run
success. As the standard of living for Trinidadians increased in
the 1970s, real wages of sugar workers rose faster than output,
causing productivity to decline. Falling yields per hectare in the
cane fields also exacerbated dwindling productivity. Additional
problems included seasonal labor shortages, factory equipment
problems, and numerous unplanned cane fires. In spite of government
efforts to revive the industry, production costs of Trinidadian
sugar in the 1980s were estimated to be three times greater than
market prices and well above the EEC's price offered through
preferential agreements. Inefficiencies and low world sugar prices
caused a large annual drain on government finances that paid for
the shortfall. The option of reducing or eliminating sugar
production was a very difficult one because of its long history on
the islands and its role as a major source of employment for a
country with chronically high unemployment rates.
In the 1980s, sugarcane continued to occupy under a third of
land in use (fewer than 20,000 hectares). The sugar subsector
employed approximately 20,000 workers, or slightly less than half
of all the agricultural labor force. Most cane was grown on the
central plains, primarily by East Indians. In 1985 about 65 percent
of all sugar was harvested on large estates; the number of small
farmers was declining because fewer young people were entering the
cane fields. The sugar harvest in 1984, one of the worst ever,
yielded 70,000 tons, or only about one-third of the harvest of
1970. Sugar production rose to over 80,000 tons in 1985, and in the
late 1980s the government was aiming for 100,000-ton sugar
harvests. Nonetheless, major increases beyond the 100,000-ton mark
were unlikely without even larger government losses. Eighty percent
of the country's sugar was exported in 1985 compared with 60
percent five years earlier. Beginning in 1984, the government also
began a program to process imported raw sugar.
Reduced market access to its major preferential export markets,
Britain and the United States, was another major problem facing the
sugar industry in the 1980s. Trinidad and Tobago's sugar quota with
the EEC was reduced at the 1985 Lomé Convention (see Glossary) from
69,000 tons to 47,300 tons as a result of its inability to fill the
previous quota. As production rebounded after mid-decade, however,
Trinidad and Tobago was allocated a portion of the quota
commitments of some African countries to export to the EEC.
Trinidad and Tobago gained even less access to the United States
market because of cutbacks in the United States International Sugar
Agreement (ISA). Trinidad and Tobago's ISA quota dropped to only
6,504 tons by 1987, a 60-percent reduction from 1984. This
reduction was expected to cause the loss of millions of dollars to
the sugar industry in Trinidad and Tobago. Because of these
unfavorable market conditions, Caroni was diversifying away from
sugar in the late 1980s into rice production and livestock.
Cocoa, derived from the cacao plant, was the other major crop
in Trinidad and Tobago. From the late 1880s until the 1930s, cocoa
was the most important crop on both islands, and in the late 1980s
it remained the leading crop on Tobago. In fact, Trinidad and
Tobago was once the second leading producer of cocoa in the world.
Brought by the Spanish in the 1700s, cocoa still occupied more
agricultural land than sugar in the 1980s, although it was
frequently cultivated with bananas and coffee. Over half the cacao
farms were small, but large estates accounted for over 80 percent
of output. Trinidad and Tobago's cocoa crop was ravaged for decades
by successive diseases. The government formulated numerous
rehabilitation schemes for the industry, the most recent one in
1980, but they were generally unable to meet their goals, and
production continued to fall. The 1980 program was no exception, as
production declined beginning in 1982. For example, in 1985 cocoa
output was 1.3 million kilograms, or under 50 percent of the 1981
output. Falling yields were another major problem the industry
faced as average yields declined from 275 kilograms per hectare in
the 1930s to under 100 kilograms per hectare in the 1980s.
Virtually all cocoa was exported. The Cocoa and Coffee Industry
Board, a central regulatory agency, handled all export functions.
Despite the state of depressed international cocoa prices in the
1980s, Trinidad and Tobago continued to receive premium prices for
its high-quality cocoa.
The other major export crops were all tree crops: coffee,
citrus fruits, and coconuts. Coffee production expanded after 1930
in response to the decline in cocoa output. Production of Trinidad
and Tobago's major variety, robusta, however, declined by more than
50 percent from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. Exports also
dropped sharply, demonstrating the lack of success of a 1970-71
rehabilitation plan undertaken by the government. Output was so low
in 1984 that no coffee was exported. Nevertheless, coffee
production did rebound strongly in 1985, reaching 2.1 million
kilograms, 35 percent of which was exported. The expansion of
citrus crops, especially oranges, grapefruits, and limes, also
coincided with the decline of cocoa in the 1930s. Output of citrus
products peaked in the mid-1950s and later decreased drastically to
a low of 4.7 million kilograms in 1982, or about 20 times below
peak output. During the early 1980s, citrus exports fell to an
insignificant 2 percent of total production. A rehabilitation
program was successfully introduced in 1982 that greatly expanded
production in the mid-1980s to over 6 million kilograms. Although
the citrus industry was affected by viruses, old trees, and high
wages, new plantings, renewed supplies of labor, and favorable
weather in the late 1980s all spurred renewed growth in citrus
crops.
Coconut, and its main derivative, copra, was another major
export crop and was the second most important crop in Tobago. Like
other export crops, output of coconuts declined in the 1970s,
making the island no longer self-sufficient in oils. All coconuts
went to the local processing industry for soaps and oils. Copra
output in 1985 exceeded 4,000 tons.
The fastest growing subsector in agriculture in the 1980s was
domestic agriculture, consisting mainly of vegetables, rice,
tubers, and livestock. The revival of domestic agriculture was the
consequence of falling oil prices, balance of payments constraints,
the return of labor to the land, and growing experimentation with
larger scale farming for domestic agriculture. In the late 1980s,
Trinidad and Tobago was approaching self-sufficiency in green
vegetables, which were typically grown on small garden plots. Rice,
a staple food, was an expanding domestic crop but was still
imported in large quantities. Such vegetables as yams, sweet
potatoes, dasheens, and eddoes (a tuber) were also produced, mostly
for direct consumption, and were also expected to increase as long
as the oil sector was recessed.
Data as of November 1987
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