sugar mono culture problems mauritius

8/3/2019 Sugar Mono Culture Problems Mauritius

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Clark University

Problems of Monoculture and Diversification in a Sugar Island: MauritiusAuthor(s): H. C. BrookfieldSource: Economic Geography, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan., 1959), pp. 25-40Published by: Clark UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/142076

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PROBLEMS OF MONOCULTURE AND DIVERSIFICATIONIN A SUGAR ISLAND: MAURITIUSII. C. Brookfield

Dr. Brookfield is Senior Research Fellow in Geography, ResearchSchool of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra./ AtAURITIUS became a one-crop sugar colony on themorrow of the Napoleonicwars. Under France the colonists had

grown a variety of crops, but at thisinauspicious time, when the slave tradewas already outlawed in the BritishEmpire, they embarked on a WestIndian type plantation economy pro-ducing a crop which, in 1814, attainedan all-time peak of ?97 a ton c.i.f. Lon-don.' The price fell in the postwardepression, but remained above ?30 aton for many years.The colonists succeeded remarkably.Acreage and production expanded rap-idly. When slave labor failed, Mau-ritius pioneered the introduction ofindentured Indian labor to the canefields, and by the middle of the centuryhad become the leading single canesugar producer in the British Empire.Subsequently the island fell on badtimes: malaria, plague, and hurricaneadded to the miseries induced by asecular fall in the sugar price, but noother activity arose to displace canecultivation. Sugar cane continues todominate Mauritius absolutely, prob-ably more than any other territory isdominated by one activity. Sugar,molasses, and rum together accountfor over 98 per cent of exports, andthe crop occupies 85 per cent of allarable land, 40 per cent of the wholeisland. There is no crop rotation.

1 N. Deerr: The History of Sugar (London,1950), II, 531.

Essentially, Mauritius is an industrialestablishment exporting to live and,since the second quarter of the 19thcentury, importing almost all foodstuffsrequired, and other consumer goods.However, the establishment is imper-fectly arranged for its function: thereare too many people for efficiency, toomany heritages from the past clutterthe organization of the industry, andthere are too many conflicts betweenthe objectives of economic, social, andpolitical policy. These latter are be-coming crucial as the violent populationupsurge of the last 15 years threatensthe island with a grave "Malthusian"problem.

THE LANDMauritius is 720 square miles in area,comparable in size to an Englishcounty. The island is wholly volcanicin origin, resulting from three outbursts

of vulcanism. The earliest of thesebuilt up a cone, which subsided, andthe remains of the caldera wall survivein the jagged mountains which ring thecentral upland. This latter is composedof some 20 shield volcanoes slopingaway to the coast from a crest lineabout 2000 feet high. The highestpoints in the island, on the southwesternplateau and on some of the calderapeaks, attain elevations of only between2500 and 2700 feet.22 E. S. W. Simpson: "The geology and min-eral resources of Mauritius," Colonial Geologyand Mineral Resources, 1, 3, (1950), 217-235.


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26 EcONOMIc GEOGRAPHY

0 5 ICMILES... a....

UJOutcropf the oldvolcoa'ics;idge$.2 ] lntermediateandyounger olcanistsContours.[ Ventsandcraters.iErrqRochiusesAAFlow).

FIG. 1. The physique of Mauritius (geologyafter Simpson).

Notwithstanding this small reliefthere is considerable climatic variety.Rainfall and cloud conditions are dom-inated by the southeasterly airstreamwhich is responsible for most of theprecipitation except that derived fromconvectional showers or from tropicalcyclones in the hottest months. Thecyclones are a major climatic hazard:when they pass over or close to theisland, they wreak great destruction.The cyclones of 1892 and 1945 eachhalved the sugar crop. However, li-ability to cyclones is a factor favoringmonoculture of sugar, which has agreater wind resistance than most trop-ical crops.Rainfall ranges from as little as 30inches in sheltered locations on theleeward side to over 200 inches on partsof the central ridge and the south-western plateau. On the windwardslope there is an almost perfectly reg-ular increase of 8 inches for each 100feet of altitude.3 Koppen's system puts

RAINFALLTYPESON MOH4R'SSYSTEMo 5 IS

E4- ~~~C21a~~~~~~o~~~~~u 2 4 6 11 10 12NUMBERFWETMONTHS

'A' with 12wet months

FIG. 2. Rainfall types on Mohr's system.

most of Mauritius into the Af and Awtypes, with an area of Cf in the centerof the island. The semiaridity of theleeward side, and the considerablecontrasts that do exist are best revealedby adopting the method suggested byMohr and adapted by Schmidt andFerguson in Indonesia.4 This system,which is applicable only to the tropics,is based on rainfall data alone. Thenumber of dry months (under 60 mm)is compared with the number of wetmonths (over 100 mm). The limits areempirically determined by soil moistureconditions in Java, where 100 mm gavea continually moist soil, but 60 mmallowed definite drying out. Figure 2is a rough application of this method,3 M. V. M. Herchenroder: La pluie a lileMaurice (Port Louis, 1935).4E. C. J. Mohr and F. A. Van Baren: Trop-ical Soils (2nd edit., The Hague, 1954), 30-72;F. H. Schmidt and J. H. A. Ferguson: "Rain-fall types based on wet and dry period ratiosfor Indonesia with Western New Guinea, "Kementerian Perhubungan Djawatan Meteorologidan Geofisik, Verhand. 42 (Djakarta, 1952).


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PROBLEMS OF MONOCULTURE AND DIVERSIFICATION IN MAURITIUS 27following Mohr in employing rainfallaverages rather than Schmidt and Fer-guson's more refined determination ofthe number of wet and dry months byaveraging the values of each year. Alladditional class, showing those areaswith no month under 100 mm is added.It is remarkable that all types occur-ring in Indonesia (excepting only thearid Palu valley of Celebes) are foundin Mauritius. Sometimes, too, thejuxtaposition is quite exceptional. Inthe southwest the transition betweenA with 12 wet months, and the F type,having as many as seven dry months,occurs in the course of a few hundredyards down the steep scarp slope. Thisleeward coastal type is similar to theclimate of the eastern Sunda islands orPort Moresby in Papua-all areas oflittle agricultural value.A rough fourfold division of theisland emerges: there is a dry westerncoastland, with a long dry season andrather uncertain wet season rainfall.This merges into a subhumid northernplain, characterized by a shorter butstill well marked dry season. Thesouthern and southeastern coastlandsare humid with little dry season, andthe center of the island is superhumidwith no real breaks in a continuouslymoist climate. By virtue of its cloudcover as much as its altitude, thecentral upland is much cooler thanthe coast.Soils in Mauritius show considerablevariety, but are imperfectly understood.Six major types are recognized corre-sponding with the three main "cli-matic"' classes-subhumid (30-50"),humid (50-100") and superhumid (over100")-each cutting across two mainclasses of parent material on the newerbasalts, the deeply weathered soils ofthe smooth flows, and the gravelly clayloams of the vesicular and aa flows(Fig. 1). In addition, a heavy clay

developed at low altitudes in the westis recognized. Mild laterization is gen-eral, and leaching is more marked athigh altitudes, where soil pH below5 is commonly found. Soils on theolder lavas have not been studied, butsince slopes on these formations aremainly steep they have little agricul-tural significance. Recent studies havesuggested similarities between the soilsof Mauritius and those of Hawaii wherean attempt has recently been made tosystematize tropical soils. In Hawaii,however, the stony soils have passedout of sugar cultivation because ofdifficulties of mechanization and mod-ern plantation operation. In Mauritiusthe stony soils form an integral partof the industry,5 though often stonesare so numerous that they are piledinto walls and pyramids, and in partscultivation is possible only by muraillecreole-one row of canes, one of stones-a system that has some advantages formoisture conservation in dry areas.

THE SUGAR INDUSTRYIn the period of expansion that en-dured from 1815 until the 1860s, sugarcultivation spread from an early nucleusin the northern plain right around theisland, leaving only the central area(roughly the 12 wet months zone) in

forest. During this period the produc-tion of sugar increased almost paripassu with the input of land and labor:the supply of the latter was the maincontrolling factor in the rate of expan-sion. The introduction off malaria in1865-1868 led to heavy loss of life inthe coastal districts, and this disaster,5 P. Halais: " Donmenes essentielles sur les

sols de lile Maurice," La Revue Agricole deFile iAlaurice, 25 (1946), 192-197; M. Clineet al: Soil Survey--Territory of Hawaii, UnitedStates Department of Agriculture (1955);D. H. Parish and S. M. Feillafe: "Titrationcurves of some local soils," Mlauritius SugarIndustry Research Institute, Annual Report,1956, 43-46.


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28 ECONOMICGEOGRAPHYcoupled with soil exhaustion and failingof mill water supplies due to forestclearance, led to the abandonment ofnumerous coastal estates, especially inthe north. At the same time, however,some 9000 additional acres were clearedon the central uplands.After 1880, the sugar price began asecular decline. Indebtedness mounted,and numerous estates began to be soldin small lots mainly to Indian cultivatorswho, only a few years before, had beenindentured laborers. The number offactories tumbled from a peak of 258about 1860 to only 104 ill 1892 and66 in 1908. The sale of estates, termedmorcellement, proceeded most rapidlybetween 1880 and 1900. It was checkedin 1902 by the effects of an outbreakof surra,6 which wiped out a large partof the draught livestock and encouragedthe rapid establishment of cane railwaysystems. The effect of these was toreduce costs of long haulage from fieldto mill, and to encourage consolidationof estates as an alternative to morcelle-ment. There was a final burst of mor-cellement between 1910 and 1914, ina period of very low land values. By1914 about half the cane land was inthe hands of small proprietors, butsince that time the trend has beentoward re-aggregation into larger units.7Until approximately 1895 the yieldof sugar remained very constant atabout one ton per arpenit.8 There wasthen a substantial improvement up toabout 1908, due to improvement incultivation practices, the use of manure

6 An animal trypanosomiasis, borne by7. evansi.7 A. North Coombes: The evolution of sugarcane culture in Mauritius (Port Louis, 1937);

the story of settlement and the spread of pop-ulation in Mauritius, with an analysis of thechanges in the sugar industry in so far as theybear oln this, is more fully treated, with fullreferences, in H. C. Brookfield: "Populationdistribution ill Mauritius," Alalayan Journal ofTropical Geography (in press).I One ardent = 1.043 acres.

and artificial fertilizers, and the wide-spread replacement of the ancient Creoleand Otahetie varieties by the higheryielding 7aannafrom the New Hebrides.There was then a boom from 1915 to1925, the price of sugar rising to amaximum of ?58 a ton c.i.f. Londonin 1920. In Mauritius, as in other canegrowing areas, this boom led to a rapidincrease in the area of sugar, to largescale land sales at inflated prices, butto very little real progress in the indus-try. The "false dawn" did greatdamage. It is traditional in Mauritiusfor a high proportion not only of fixedcapital but also of working capital tobe obtained under mortgage from abailleur de fonds, who is generallyalso a sugar broker. A heavy burdenof fixed repayments was taken onduring the boom, and this becameinsupportable during the subsequentdepression. The period from 1925 to1940 was the worst in the whole historyof sugar. From 1929 to 1940 the c.i.f.London price never rose above ?10a ton, and in 1934 it fell below ?4.Though costs were pared to the min-imum, bringing wages to starvationlevel and below, the burden of debtwas irremovable. The bailleurs defondsthemselves were often unable to realizeany profit on their capital, and thoughthey became virtual owners and op-erators of many estates and smallerholdings, they were often creditors formore than the total value of the landand improvements. An AgriculturalBank and Co-operative Credit Societieswere formed, mainly to help the smallgrowers, but not these aids, nor thede facto subsidy of Imperial Preferencecould really lift the industry out of itsslough until the depression ended.9

I Coloniial Office, Cmcd. 4034, Report of Com-mission on the financial situation of Mauritius(1931); P. de Sormay: La cane a sucre a l'ilellaurice (Paris, 1920); Sir Alan Pim: Colonial(Continued on next page)


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PROBLEMS OF MONOCULTURE AND DIVERSIFICATION IN MAURITIUS 29Some relief was, however, obtainedin the thirties by a renewed improve-ment in yield. In large measure thiswas due to the work of the sugar experi-

mental station, which introduced sev-eral new varieties. Tanna, which hadbeen the principal Mauritian cane sincethe 1890s, diminished from 57 per centto only 5 per cent of the cane land areabetween 1930 and 1944, its place beingtaken by a variety of new canes, ofwhich the most successful was a Carib-bean variety, BH 10/12, which covered40 per cent of the cane lands by 1940.Then in 1937 came the first majorMauritian, variety, M 134/32, by farthe highest yielding cane thus far em-ployed in the island. The spread ofthis cane was slow because of theunusually long ratooning cycle prac-ticed in Mauritius it is by no meansuncommon for as many as six rat oonsto be taken before cane is replanited--but by 1950 this cane covered 91 percent of the cane area. A large part ofthe massive increase in production thathas taken place since 1938 is attributableto the use of this variety alone.Prices rose steadily after 1939, thoughcompulsory wartime food planting anddevastating cyclones in 1944 and 1945held the industry back. After 1946,however, rising prices, the spread ofM 134/32, and a guaranteed marketfirst in British contracts then withinthe Commonwealth Sugar Agreement,10combined to restore the industry to afavorable financial position. There hasbeen substantial investment, bringingthe industry to a much higher level ofAgricultural Production (London, 1946), pp. 71-76. Geographical accounts of the industry inthe early thirties are to be found in G. J. Robert-son: "The Sugar Industry of Mauritius,"Econ. Geogr., Vol. 6, 1930, pp. 338-351; andP. Caubert: "La canne a sucre a lile Maurice,"Annales de Geographie, Vol. 42, 1933, pp. 516-528. A more recent survey is to be found inC. Robequain: "Destin d'Une ile a sucre:leconomie et le peupleinent de Maurice,"Annales de Geographie, Vol. 63, 1954, pp. 255-273.

efficiency. However, since about 1953the guaranteed market within the Agree-ment, which absorbs normally over 80per cent of Mauritian exports at theguaranteed price, has ceased its rapidexpansion. Prices have become stable,and the world "free" price recessed.Though failure of other producers toutilize fully their quotas has sparedMVlauritiushe need to restrict output,an increasingly static market, morestable prices, and still rising costs'would seem to herald a renewed periodof some difficulty for the industry.

THE DISTRIBUTION AND STRUCTUREOF TIHE SUGAR INDUSTRY

In order to comprehend the problemfacing the industry and the island, it isnecessary to examine the sugar industrystructure (Fig. 3). Virtually all landthat is suitable for cane, other thanthat under towns and villages, is underthe crop. High prices and M 134/32have brought much formerly sub-mar-ginal land back into cultivation in thenorth and west, while on the uplandsbetter fertilization, and control of dis-eases has extended the boundary ofcultivation into the superhumid margin.

10 The market for Mauritian sugar haschanged substantially during its history. In-itially this market was in Europe, then inIndia, South Africa and Australia. Growthof production in these three areas in the presentcentury has forced a return to the Britishmarket, with the addition of Canada. TheUnited Kingdom and Canada now take thebulk of the crop. Only some 25,000 tons ayear are consumed locally.11Among these costs is the sea freight rate,which the Mauritian producer has to absorb.In 1956, when rates rose to a high peak due tothe Suez crisis, growers realized only ?33/7/6net per ton of a c.i.f. London price of ?40/15/0.Low freight rates in 1957 permitted a betterreturn. It is noteworthy, however, that in1956 Mauritian producers still fared betterthan South African producers, who sell thebulk of their sugar in a controlled-price localmarket: they realized only ?26/12/2 a ton.Absence of a local market is not wholly dis-advantageous except in times of low worldprices. Barclays l3ank (DCO), Overseas Survey(London, 1957); South African Sugar Journal,41, 7 (July, 1957), 537.


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30 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

S U G A R L A N D

BY CLASS OF HOLDING, 1946.FACTORIES BY OUTPUT 1956. |pl/aotersIHo/d/tlqs /ess than /00 Aroents.P?/6'nters'/-/o/dinys ov'er /00 ,4,oepts.

El3] Estates.o t sS616AA'46TO/IES Br/956 O1/U/T/T

S0,000 Taos(Q)=- 25,000 Tonsdlanters Pactories' .....

Canes KF CanesE1 Tea 14Factory. , XPORT LOUISL51ac/k A4actoiyi. 4i~~[E C]garette Factory. FF Z/a erlne f~e

5 0 5 [0M I LE S

FIG. 3. Sugar land by class of holding, 1946, and factories by Output, 1956. (Data from MlauritiusEconomic Commission, Part 2, 1949; and Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute, AnnualReport, 1956.)


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PROBLEMS OF MONOCULTURE AND DIVERSIFICATION IN MAURITIUS 31TABLE I

CANE PRODUCTION PER ARPENT AND COST PER TON BY CLIMATIC TYPE AND CLASS OF HOLDING

Subhumid Humid Superhumidless than 5o inches So--soo inches more than Ioo inchesTons/arp Rs/ton Tons/alp Rs/ton Tons/arp Rs/Iton

Estates .............. 26.5 13.7 26.5 13.2 24.6 13.7Large planters ................... 18.5 .... 22. 7 .... 19.6 ....Small planters .16.8 11.3 18.0 10.3 15.4 11.8Very small planters .15..1 8.. 6 15.7 8.5 12.9 9.9

From Mauritius Economic Commission Report (1949), Part 2, unpublished.

Cane cultivation extends through theA to E climatic zones, except whereconditions are too bouldery, or wherewind exposure on dry coasts generateslocal drought. Some 16,000 acres areirrigated, mostly in the F zone,though furrow irrigation is used in theD and E zones to minimize the effectsof the dry season. Optimum yieldsoccur in the borderlands of the A andB zones, but the B zone probably pro-vides minimum cost conditions, forless fertilizer and many fewer weedingsare required.12 Fertilizer and weedingcosts increase rapidly with the onsetof superhumid conditions, though newcane varieties, notably Ebene 1/37,have been developed in recent years toovercome these disadvantages by offer-ing optimal yields under much wetterconditions than M 134/32. A featureof the past seven years has been thebeginning of regional specialization incane types. Previously one variety, beit Otahetie, Tanna, or M 134/32, dom-inated the whole island; now there isstill M 134/32 in the drier north, newBarbados varieties and Ebene 1/37 onthe uplands, and new Mauritian varie-ties in the intermediate areas."3 Re-placement. however, is slow because of

12 Colony of Mauritius, Mlauritius EconomicCommission Report (1949), Part 1 (published)and Part 2 (unpublished) contain a mass ofdata on the costs of the sugar industry, withmuch material on regional and climatic differ-entials that is quite unobtainable elsewhere.This source is relied on heavily in the presentsection.

long ratooning: 80-85 per cent of theweight of cane cut each year is ratooncane.Variation in cost and yield withclimate is, however, much less thanvariation with type of grower. In1946, there were 30 "factory estates,"109 other "estates " and "planters " whoeach cultivated over 100 arpents (104.3acres), 13,685 "small planters " cul-tivating areas ranging from 99 arpentsdown to a single row of canes, andfinally some 2900 metayers, frequentlypart-time estate laborers, who culti-vated some of the land of 12 estatesand 20 large planters on a share-croppingbasis.14 A survey made in 1946 pro-duced the results shown in Table I.While it is true that the small growers,and especially the very small growers,generally farm the inferior land andfrequently cultivate marginal land, itis also clear from this table that theyproduce not only less efficiently butalso less intensively than the largergrowers. Despite the increase in bothcosts and yields since 1946, the relation-ships shown in this table have not beensubstantially disturbed in the interim.The smaller grower, lacking fixed or

13 Mauritius Sugar Industry Research In-statute, Annual Reports.14 In Mauritian usage a "planter" is a small-grower. An "estate" is a holding to which apermanent name attaches, though its use issometimes confined to the large holdings withfactories. In this paper Mauritian usage isfollowed, except that the term "plantationsystem" has its general meaning.


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32 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHYworking capital, fertilizes less, weedsless, uses less machinery, and mostprobably ratoons his canes for longerthan the estates. The small grower'slow cost operation was well suited tothe low returns of the period betweenthe wars; high prices, however, haverewarded the increased capitalizationthat only the estates and a few largeplanters can afford."5There are some additional considera-tions affecting the estates with factorieswhich are operating to widen the differ-ential between the different classes ofgrower. They arise from the fact,which has held good for many years.that factory operation is more profitablethan cultivation. The Mauritius Eco-nomic Commission derived the followinginteresting information:

DISTRIBUTION OF THE NET PROFITOF THE ESTATE COMPANIES

1938 1946Rsooo Rsooo

From estates' cane cultivation . 1,614 2,014From manufacture: estates' cane. 2,374 5,243planters' cane, 2,257 3,024

Of the increase in profits on estates'canes between 1938 and 1946 over 80per cent was derived from manufacture.The milling process demands largecapital costs but low running costs:marginal return from increases in thequantity of cane handled is thereforeat a maximum when the mill is largeand running at full capacity. For theindustry as a whole it is clearly mostprofitable to maximize production perfactory; this is the main reason forconsolidation of factories. For theestates with factory this also means that

15 With a price of Rs 20 per ton, and costsand yields as in Table I, an estate farmingsubhumid land would obtain a net return ofRs 76 per arpent, a very small planter Rs 168.With a price of Rs 40 per ton, an estate wouldreceive Rs 606 per arpent, a very small planteronly Rs 470.

it is most profitable to capitalize cul-tivation so as to expand the throughputof the factory. No such considerationsaffect the Mauritian small grower, forthe factories are wholly controlled bythe estates. Small growers' co-opera-tives are limited to the provision ofworking capital for cultivation, andthere is no co-operative milling suchas has developed on an extensive scalein Australia.Thus while estate profits are dom-inated by factory considerations, andintensive capitalization in cultivationmay earn its reward in factory ratherthan in field operation, the small grow-er's scale of production is in theorydetermined by profits to be made oncultivation alone, and in practice alsoby limitations of working capital. Ina period of good prices and heavyinvestment in the industry,16 theseconsiderations operate to sharpen thedifferential between the estates andthe smaller growers. The plantationeconomy is thus revitalized, and thetrend toward peasant production, whichhas not been pronounced in Mauritiussince 1915, has now been firmly reversed.THE FUTURE OF THE SUGAR INDUSTRY

We approach the crux of the problemposed in the introduction to this paper:there are conflicts between the objec-tives of economic, social, and politicalpolicy, conflicts that are sharpenedby the rapid upsurge in population.One plane of conflict has already be-come apparent: the renascence of theplantation economy is leading to aprogressive reduction in the proportionof small growers' land, and the circum-

16 In 1946 the fixed capital of the estates wasvalued at Rs 133,000,000 of which Rs 59,000,000represented land and Rs 74,000,000 was thevaluation of factory equipment, rolling stock,and buildings. Since then over Rs 200,000,000has been invested, virtually entirely from theindustry's own profits, in the factories alone.


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PROBLEMS OF MONOCULTURE AND DIVERSIFICATION IN MAURITIUS 33

~--4it

FIG. 4. A sugar estate in southern Mauritius. (Aircraft Operating Company of Africa, Ref.No. F. 16193.)stances of the industry are sharpeningthe differential between the big andthe small man. In a colony now ad-vancing rapidly toward self-governmentwith universal franchise, this economicdevelopment clearly runs counter tothe social policies of a Labor Partygovernment, even though most of theestate proprietors are themselvesMauritians.Much sharper conflicts may, how-ever, emerge from the growing pressureon the industry for major rationaliza-tion in an effort to remain competitive

with other sugar areas. The industryis now operating on a smaller profitmargin than in the halcyon days around1950. The problem posed by risingcosts and steady prices has been keptat bay by continued increases in yield,but this solution brings in its trainthe danger of overproduction. Stepsto obtain economy, to maximize outputper factory, to reduce transportationcosts, and to increase efficiency arenow the order of the day. Though theMauritian industry produces a veryhigh quality sugar with an average


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34 ECONOMic GEOGRAPHYpolarization above 980,17 it is tendingto fall behind in some of these respects.Mechanization, longer ratooning, andcanes which will mature earlier in theseason are the main lines of advancein the field side, and in these directionsgood progress is being made. Mechan-ical destoning, carried out by the estatesor by the Government on some small-planters' land, facilitates mechanizedoperation, and the new canes show notonly much higher ratooning qualitiesbut also in some cases greater diseaseresistance, which will increase returns.It is, however, in the factory and trans-port sides of the industry that the mostdramatic improvements may well lie.Mauritius had 30 factories in operationin 1946, and in 1949 the Economic Com-mission recommended a reduction to18 in five years. There are still 26,producing quantities of sugar rangingfrom 55,000 tons to below 10,000 tons(Fig. 3). Though the small millsproduce with lower overhead charges,their costs per ton are much higherthan for the larger mills.By modern standards this is smallscale operation. The larger Natalindustry has only 17 mills, of which9 produce more than 50,000 tons(against one in Mauritius), and threeare in the 100,000 ton class in goodyears. The Mauritian cane areas aremostly in open terrain and are compact;there are not the numerous fragments

17The Mauritian industry was formerlyalmost unique among colonial exporters inproducing 990 polarization " plantation white "sugar. When Britain imposed penalties onsugars with over 99? polarization (i.e., purity)in order to protect the British refining industryand to ensure that unrefined sugar was notplaced on the British market, Mauritius wasforced to lower the quality of its raw sugar.However, quality still remains above the aver-age. This question, together with the generalquestion of the location of the sugar refiningindustry (as distinct from the sugar millingindustry), is discussed with considerable refer-ence to Mauritius in Charlotte Leubuscher:The processing of colonial raw materials, A studyin location (London, Colonial Office, 1951).

of cane land which aid the survival ofvery small mills in parts of Queensland,for example. Though the capital costof consolidation is very large, thereseems little doubt that the Mauritianindustry could produce more econom-ically with a quarter of the presentnumber of factories.Allied to centralization, but moreimmediately likely of realization, isthe prospect of a major change in thewhole system of cane and raw sugartransportation. At present cane iscarried to the mill by a too-light canerailway system, by bullock cart, overshort distances of the Mauritius Gov-ernment Railway, or rarely, and ex-perimentally, by truck. Raw sugaris bagged at the mill, and taken byGovernment Railway to Port Louis. AtPort Louis it is stored, and lighteredout to ships in the roadstead, beingexported in bags.

Change is possible in every part ofthis structure. Other areas, notablyHawaii, have demonstrated conclusivelythat road transport is more economicthan rail at all stages; the last canerailway system has now disappearedfrom Hawaii. Road transport of canes,with vehicular collection from the fieldshas been tried with great success inSouth Africa, and experiments in Mau-ritius have proved successful. Roadtransport to Port Louis would certainlybe cheaper than the railway system,which is at present subsidized byGovernment-backed deficit operation.Experiments in bulk shipment haveproved successful, though there is yetno bulk handling plant, and bags aresimply tipped into ships' holds. Theinstallation of full bulk handling atall stages from factory to ship, withbulk storage and loading plant at PortLouis, must be regarded as a probabledevelopment. This change, above allothers, would immediately displace a


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PROBLEMS OF MONOCULTURE AND DIVERSIFICATION IN MAURITIUS 35large force of workers on the railways,the docks, and in the whole Mauritiusfiber industry, which would be com-pletely destroyed. Yet the change, andother changes here reviewed, are prob-ably essential for the future of thesugar industry.The problem is aggravated by thefact that in almost every way the newphase of the industry is capital ratherthan labor intensive. In the past laborshortage has been almost traditionalin Mauritius and only in periods ofdepression has there hitherto been asurplus. Improvements in yield havebeen achieved without increases in thelabor force; the sugar industry employsno more today than in 1920, whenproduction was less than half presentlevels. This trend has had beneficialeffects so long as the working popula-tion remained static: after the cessationof large Indian immigration the malepopulation actually declined for manyyears, and only began to rise againafter 1930. In fact the male populationbetween 15 and 64 was only a few scorelarger in 1952 than in 1881. This stateof affairs, brought about first by anunbalanced age-sex structure, then bypersistent high mortality, is now atan end. In recent years, the elimina-tion of malaria and general improve-ments in welfare have led to an explosivepopulation increase. Natural increasehas added some 200,000 to a 1944population little over 400,000.So far, the impact of this upsurgehas been felt chiefly in an increasedburden of dependency; only now is itbeginning to affect the size of the workforce. Yet within 20 years it is morethan probable that the numbers in the15-64 age group will have doubled.18

18 The material in this section is more fullytreated in H. C. Brookfield: "Mauritius; (lemo-graphic upsurge and prospect," PopulationStudies, Vol. 11, 1957, pp. 102-122.

It is against this background that wemust view developments in the sugarindustry, which will tend to diminishthe demand for labor in the industrythat employs all but a few thousandsof those engaged in primary and sec-ondary production, and to destroyimportant ancillary activities.It is traditionally argued that in-creasing returns from sugar will offsetthese disadvantages by generating newdemand and by making possible thecapitalization of new forms of activity.This solution may, however, not bevalid for Mauritius. There is a shortageof investment opportunity except inthe sugar industry itself, and there hasindeed been a net outflow of capitalfrom Mauritius in recent years, whilethe rate of fixed capital formation, atsome 12-14 per cent of the gross do-mestic product, is not high for anindustrial economy.19 Should an inflowof capital be attracted to the colony, itwould most probably be for purposesconnected with sugar. It is ominousthat even with the rising returns ofrecent years, per capita real incomeat 1948 prices has remained aroundRs 700-750 (Cstg 50-56) throughoutthe 1948-54 period.20 Prospects ofrising demand per capita are not bright.These are perhaps surprising ob-servations in view of the fact that largeparts of Mauritius are unused, andthat there are other economic activitiesin existence. However, the relationshipof these other activities to sugar ismarginal in either a geographical oreconomic sense, or both.2' A study of

19Colony of Mauritius, Central StatisticalOffice, The national income and national accountsof Mauritius, 1948-1954 (Port Louis, 1956).20 Ibid.21 The concept of the margin is here used inthe sense of the geographical and economicmargin between activities. Other things beingequal, the activity yielding the highest rent willbe followed. Where the rent from sugar fallsbelow that from tea or fiber cultivation the(Continued on next page)


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36 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHYtheir development, distribution, andproblems will cast much light on theproblems of monoculture and diversifi-cation that have been laid bare.

THE TEA INDUSTRYThe most important of the subsidiarycrops is tea, and it is on tea cultivationthat the main hopes of agriculturaldiversification are all pinned at thepresent time. Tea was introduced toMauritius in the 18th century by theIntendant Poivre, who introduced awide variety of crops, trees, and bushesinto the island, established the famousBotanical Gardens at Pamplemousses,and made the island a center fromwhich seeds and seedlings were dis-seminated over a wide area.22 Therewas some early 19th century productionof tea in the east, but it gave way tosugar. Later in the century an experi-

mental plantation was established onthe uplands, beyond the superhumidlimit for sugar. The crop became wellestablished in various parts of the A(with 12 wet months) zone during the1890s, when a factory was built andsome 500 arpents were planted. Therise in labor costs during the 1914-18margin of sugar cultivation will occur. Thetheoretical considerations underlying this ap-proach to land use differentiation are treatedin J. Robinson: The Economics of ImperfectCompetition (London, 1933), pp. 102-119; ("Adigression on rent") in A. Ldsch (trs. W. H.Wolgrom), The Economics of Location (NewHaven, 1954), esp. pp. 36-67; and in E. M.Hoover, The Location of Economic Activity (NewYork, 1948), pp. 90-102. The term rent is inthis paper used in the classical economist's senseof the surplus earned by a factor of productionover and above the minimum necessary toinduce it to do its work. Land which earns norent is thus at or below the margin of economicuse; land which earns equal rent under sugaror under tea is at the margin of use for sugaror for tea. All land in profitable use earns rent,the better land earning more than the poorer.The concept is closely allied with that of the"free gifts of nature."

22 Cloves were almost certainly introducedto Zanzibar from Mauritius. They came toMauritius from the Moluccas under Poivre.

war led to some decline in tea and sometea land was transferred to cane totake advantage of high sugar prices.This was subsequently abandoned, andin the thirties low wages again encour-aged a revival of tea. Quality remainedpoor, however, for virtually no newbushes had been introduced since 1900and the industry supplied no more thana part of the local demand.After 1945 the Government took ahand in the tea industry with a viewto developing tea as a second majorcrop; the rapid growth of populationgave increasing urgency to this policyas time went on. Government hasassisted in the modernization of fac-tories, has established an experimentalstation and an extension service, hasimported new high quality strains fromNyasaland and India, and has assistedplanters with the clearing of new intakesof Crown Land. The crop has nowbeen raised to about 1,500,000 poundsof tea of which a substantial propor-tion, derived so far from only onefactory, is exportable. Production ex-ceeds local demand. However, allthis effort has only led to an extensionof the tea area from 1000 to 2500arpents, and it is variously estimatedthat between 15,000 and 30,000 arpentsare suited to the crop.23

Several circumstances combine tobring about this lag. Old, low-yieldingbadly planted bushes and unenterpris-ing cultivation and factory operationare partly responsible; though averageyield has been improved from around400 to nearly 700 pounds per arpent,some high-quality bushes have yieldedover 1000 pounds experimentally. Therehave been labor difficulties, for teacultivation requires about one laborer23Tea possibilities have been subject tointermittent examination for many years. Afull survey of the history of the crop is con-tained in the centenary publication (1954) of theCharnbred'agriculture de lile Maurice.


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PROBLEMS OF MONOCULTURE AND DIVERSIFICATION IN MIAURITIUS 37

4.....,:.,''''a*l lll

LL __l1g__

FIG. 5 (left). The Port Louis mountains across the northern plain.FIG. 6 (right). Bouldery land recently cleared and planted to tea on the central uplands.

per acre during a flush season thatoverlaps the sugar crop season, andtea plantations are mostly in unsettledareas, without readily available locallabor. Labor has furthermore beenmore costly since the war, and there isno body of working people skilled intea. The slow growth of the cropin Mauritius-some 18 months above1500 feet-is unattractive to growerswith little capital. The main fault,however, is simply lack of capitalizationitself. Tea cultivation in Mauritiusis a small planters' business and fewnew entrants to the business have hadadequate resources. In 1956 the Legis-lative Council determined on strongaction to end this situation: a programwas launched at a cost of Rs 4,000,000to bring a further 3000 arpents undercultivation by 1960. Some land isbeing wholly cleared, destoned, pre-pared, and planted before being leasedto smallholders, while elsewhere assist-ance is being provided with clearing,seeding, and fertilizing, and providingroads and labor housing to serve some2500 arpents. Nearly all this new tealand is taken in from the waste; verylittle is abstracted from sugar. Indeedon the tea/sugar margin, the combina-tion of a new rise in the price of sugarwith the introduction of canes whichyield better under superhumid condi-

tions might yet throw substantial teaareas in jeopardy.The future of tea in Mauritius is notyet assured. Labor needs are large andwages higher than in most tea producingareas. Though the industry must nowexport, the local market still takesthe bulk of the crop and is the moreremunerative. Prospects depend onincreasing yield and in securing econ-omies of scale. However, Governmenthelp now seems assured for the valueof a second crop-one with a notablystable market, and which will absorbmuch labor-is now well appreciatedin Mauritius.

THE FIBER INDUSTRYThe problems which beset the de-velopment of tea face the other sub-sidiary activities in a more formidableform. The position of the fiber industryis now desperate. The subhumid west-ern side of the island has extensiveareas of aloe (furcraea gigantea) whichhas become wild and spread widelyfrom some initial 18th century plant-ings. Some attempts have also been

made to plant sisal, and this too hasrun wild, though less extensively. Withsome Government support, a part-extractive part-cultivated production offiber has been developed for the manu-facture of sugar bags. The main area


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38 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHYof production is in a small tract receiv-ing from 35 to 45 inches of rain nearthe La Ferme reservoir (Fig. 3), whereboth furcraea and sisal are planted.Nearly half the total production comesfrom here. Elsewhere the industrydepends mainly on wild furcraea, butthe sources are small and scattered andare limited in value by drought, byheavy clay soils, and by the fact thatthe most productive areas are alsomarginal for other activities yieldingmore rent-tobacco, coastal casuarinaplantations, and sugar itself. In 1948it was estimated that there were some7500 arpents of productive furcraeaand sisal, sufficient to supply about afifth of the sugar industry demand.Since then M 134/32 has made furtherinroads into the fiber area, and hasraised much of the best fiber landabove the economic margin for sugarcultivation.24

The fiber industry is primitive inorganization. There are 30 decorticat-ing plants, of which half a dozen producemost of the output. A few years agoover 40 were in operation. Fibers goto a sack factory which was erectedbv the Government in the middle ofthe depression in 1932. Unfortunately,this stimulus did not succeed in drawingcapital into the industry, and Mauritiushas never been able to produce sugarbags at a cost below the c.i.f. price ofimported Indian jute bags. The pro-longed world shortage of jute bagsafter the war gave some encouragementto the industry, but recently this hasended, and at the same time experi-ments in bulk loading of sugar haveundermined the whole basis of theindustry. The sugar industry continuesto buy local bags under an agreement

24 Colony of Mauritius, Report on the Mau-ritius Fibre Industry by G. W. Lock and P. W.Lees (Port Louis, 1948); Chambre d'agricutturede l'ile Maurice, Centenary publication (1954);Department of Agriculture, Annual reports.

which terminates in 1958: already thesack factory has been forced to reducepayments to growers in two successiveyears, and with returns now marginalfor most of the industry, deficit financ-ing of the Government sack factoryhas been resorted to in 1957. With amajor change to bulk loading of sugarin prospect, there would seem little pointin persisting with this enterprise.

OTHER FORMS OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITYThere remain the activities geared tolocal consumption: food crops, meat anddairy produce, and tobacco. Of theseonly tobacco supplies any substantialproportion of the local market: morethan half the weight of leaf and one-third of the value of tobacco smokedin the island are locally produced,mainly in the subhumid coastlands ofthe north and northeast. Nearly 700arpents are planted, the area being

limited by the Tobacco Board accord-ing to the requirements of the cigarettecompany in Port Louis. An effort isbeing made to replace Amarello by Vir-ginian and to improve the color of leaf.This will ensure a larger share of thehigher priced grades in the local market;there is, however, no hope of export, forMauritian costs are higher than Rho-desian and even were costs equal thesmall scale of production in Mauritiuswould make export uneconomic.25The area under food crops has dimin-ished rapidly since war-time and post--war subsidies were withdrawn in 1950.Most food crop land has reverted tosugar cane, and what remains consistsmainly of maize in the remote south-west and high rent activities such asmarket gardening near the towns orthe irrigated onion culture of an isolatedvalley on the east coast. The foodsupply of Mauritius is derived almost

1s Colony of Mauritius, Department of Agri-culture Reports.


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PROBLEMS OF MONOCULTURE AND DIVERSIFICATION IN MAURITIUS 39wholly from overseas. Rice, which isthe principal item of diet, is importedunder agreement from Burma. Meatcomes mainly from Madagascar, wheatfrom Australia, and fruit from SouthAfrica. The relationship of food pro-duction to sugar production in Mauritiusprovides a neat illustration of the prin-ciple of comparative cost. Only veg-etables, fish, and milk are entirelylocally produced, the latter mainlyfrom stall-fed animals kept by severalthousand individual cow-keepers. Thereis very little grass farming.There remain some 50,000 arpentsof "4permanent waste " in Mauritius.While some of this is too wet andcloudy, too dry, too bouldery or toosteep for cultivation of any kind, muchof it is, in fact, usable in one way oranother. Possibly some 20,000 or morearpents will be sown to tea, but thereremain large areas which could, withsuitable preparation, be afforested, be-come reasonable pastures, or growpotatoes a crop which is in largedemand.26 However, the problems ofmarginality, capital shortage, and thesheer limitations of a small and poormarket would beset all such experi-ments. The best land is pre-emptedfor cane; what remains is rarely bestsuited to the crops that are tried uponit. The local market is very restricted,and the isolation and small size ofMauritius, together with the fact thatgenerally lower wage scales operate inneighboring territories, make it wellnigh impossible to establish a regionalmarket and very difficult to enter newexport fields. Notwithstanding the

26 Potatoes have shown good results experi-mentally, but there are serious problems ofdisease, of soil acidity on the high ground, andof deterioration and liability to pests in storageother than cold storage. (Department of Agri-culture, Report, 1955); The possible future ofmuch of the sub-marginal land is discussed,perhaps over-optimistically, in Colony of Mau-ritius, Report on the possibilities of land settlementin Mauritius, by J. Bett (1948).

availability of land, labor, a goodroad system, electric power, and otherservices therefore, the creation anddevelopment of new activities presentsformidable problems.A word should be said about theconsequences of sugar monoculture onactivities other than primary produc-tion. Absolute dependence on exporthas brought about an unusual degreeof concentration into the port, on whichall communications converge, linkingall parts of the island readily with thecapital. All those activities whichrequire overseas raw materials andlocal distribution are clustered in PortLouis, mostly near the port. The smallmatch industry, the manufacture ofsoft drinks, cigarettes (employing bothlocal an(1 imported leaf), wine bottling,wine and rum compounding (using localrum), leather work and ice cream mak-ing are all entirely in Port Louis, whichalso has all but two of the wholesaleestablishments and 60 of the 70 bankingand commercial establishments in thecolony. Mobility of goods is not par-alleled by comparable mobility ofpopulation, and the retail trade andsuch service industries as clothing andfurniture making are far less centralized.Industries processing the primary prod-ucts are not centralized at all, with thesole partial exception of the cigarettefactory :27 for the primary industriesPort Louis is the funnel through which

27 In each of the processing industries--sugarmilling, fiber decorticating, and tea drying andpreparation--the operation of Weber's loss-of-weight factor may be clearly demonstrated.Sugar milling has a loss-of-weight factor ofabout 8 (vide W. Smith, "The location of in-dustry," Transactions and Papers, Institute ofBritish Geographers, 21 (1955), pp. 1-18; A.Weber, Theory of the location of industries,Translated, with introduction and notes, byC. J. Friedrich (1929). The operation of thisfactor is, however, diminished by the advan-tages of large scale operation; and currentmeasures to reduce transport costs, by givinggreater weight to processing costs, will reinforcethis tendency.


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40 ECONOMic GEOGRAPHYpasses their trade. The other activitiesof the capital stem from this function.

CONCLUSIONMonoculture of sugar has broughtadvantages to Mauritius: it has madepossible the maintenance of a substan-tially larger population at a betterstandard of living than would havebeen possible under any form of sub-sistence cultivation. It has createdwithin the island an efficient industry,enjoying many economies of scale, andserved by a labor force well versedand skilled in the production of sugar.There is, however, a reverse to themedal. Monoculture has brought Mau-ritius into a position in which thedemands of the dominant industryinhibit the development of others.These demands are leading to moveswhich are re-establishing the plantationin a more massive and capitalized

form-a development that could havefar reaching effects on capital/peasantand capital/labor relations of greatmoment in a territory on the verge ofquasi-autonomy with universal suf -

frage. The drive for efficiency actuallythreatens to aggravate an already des-perate population problem. Yet canthe sugar industry prosper without adrive for efficiency? And can Mauritiussurvive without a viable sugar industry?The remedy would seem to lie atleast in large part in diversification.However, all possible activities areeither tied, as is sugar, to the exportmarket, or else are throttled by thesmall size and poverty of the localmarket. An examination of the sub-sidiary forms of primary productionoffers little prospect except for tea; yeteven this industry has lagged. UntilGovernment actively intervened in 1956it failed to attract capital in significantquantity, and it retains substantialproblems of costs so that Governmentsubvention of one kind or another maywell be a continuing necessity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe writer's thanks are due to the PopulationInvestigation Committee for making possiblea visit to Mauritius in 1954 on a related inquiry,and to the Government of Mauritius for makingofficial publications and some other materialfreely available.

sugar mono culture problems mauritius

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