Production and Higher Standards

A Glimpse into 1960

High land utilisation drives Barbados’s superior living standards across the British Caribbean

By Peter Ibbotson

Mauritius is not the only overcrowded island in the world. Barbados suffers from the same overcrowding, the same high density of population, the same rapidly-increasing population, the same demographic as well as economic factors, as Mauritius. In Barbados, it is essential that the land yield as much produce as possible in order to feed as well as possible the ever-increasing number of mouths.

To the Barbadians, in fact, it is essential that every possible bit of land should be planted, should be utilised to the full. The mainspring of the island’s economy is, as in Mauritius, the production and export of sugar; but crop production does not stop there. Not for Barbados the colossal quantity of imports of all kinds of food, including food which could well be grown at home. Far from it.

“Come and see my land,” the Barbadian will say; and off you go. “l have only an acre,” he will say, almost apologetically; but the attitude of apology is only a pose; in reality, the Barbadian is proud of his land, be it but an acre (slightly less than one arpent) or even less. You get to his smallholding; and what do you see? The whole acre is given over to sugar, as far as you can tell; but what does your smallholder go on to say? “Six crops I get from my acre,” he boasts, “six crops, and all good ones. I am selling my sugar, that is my cash crop; but see, l have five more”. You look for the other five, and you discover one of the most intensive pieces of land utilisation that you are ever likely to come across.

Round the acre is a fence. Not a corrugated iron fence; not a wooden fence. Indeed, no: instead, a cucumber vine, prolific as the proverbial rabbit or mouse. Above the cucumber vine, rear the leaves and pods of peas; fat, plump, juicy pods full of luscious green peas. The whole acre is surrounded by this living fence which produces two crops: cucumbers and peas. Inside the fence grows the sugar cane; but on the ground you will see, trailing between the canes, a pumpkin vine — prolific and fruitful, producing food for several families for weeks on end.

Among the canes you will find crop number five – breadfruit trees. Two of these trees will produce three suppers a week, every week of the year, for a family of five; and at Christmas the farmers drink a rich red brew made from the prickly red pods which are plucked, dried and boiled once a year. This red brew is called sorrel; and any Barbadian will tell you that “Christmas ain’t no Christmas if it ain’t have a little drop of sorrel”.

The sixth crop may well be a couple of pear trees also hidden among the cane; but whereas the sugar is grown to sell for cash, and the cucumbers, peas, pumpkins and breadfruit are grown for food, the pears are a luxury, almost the only luxury which the Barbadian tenant farmer will permit himself. In fact, it has been said of the Barbadian that “You may beg him for a breadfruit; you may pocket a cucumber without arousing his wrath; but any raid on the pear tree is an unforgivable blasphemy against the land.”

Some farmers keep a hive of bees in one of their breadfruit trees; not so much for the honey produced, but as a protection against predatory robbers who might have designs on the pear tree!

This intensive cultivation of the land helps the Barbadian tenant farmer to enjoy a relatively high standard of living: certainly, his standard of living is higher than that of his counterpart in Mauritius. Too much land in Mauritius is under-cultivated; many a small planter or metayer is content to grow his arpent of sugar as a cash crop without attempting a second (let alone a sixth!) crop in conjunction therewith. Nor on the estates do we find such intensive cultivation of the inter-lines as we find in Barbados.

Intensive cultivation of every available bit of arable land, on the lines of that in Barbados would do much to make Mauritius more self-supporting in the matter of food, and less dependent on imports of foodstuffs. Leaving crops for one moment, why on earth should Mauritius import over a million shell eggs a year? not to mention several tons of liquid or dried eggs as well as thousands of poultry carcases?

Is there no one at the Department of Agriculture or in private enterprise who is interested in increasing poultry-farming in Mauritius and reducing this colossal quantity of poultry imports? (Chickens must be the only commodity capable of being imported before they are born, while they are alive, or after they are dead). A soundly-based domestic poultry-farming industry could be made financially attractive; a deep freeze or cold storage plant (such as I referred to last week when writing about the development of the fishing industry) would help supplies of table birds to be evenly regulated throughout the year; British experience in the boiler industry suggests that the same industry could well and profitably be introduced to Mauritius.

A year ago, a scheme was initiated in Seychelles to import properly balanced and blended poultry feeds from Kenya in order to encourage the production of eggs and table birds for the local market. The scheme has been so successful in its first year of operation that many poultry keepers have asked that it be extended. A co-operative society of poultry-keepers is under consideration — but who initiated the scheme in the first place? A Seychellois poultry-keeper? No. The Department of Agriculture? No. Who then? None other than the Governor’s wife — Lady Thorp. Is there no one in Mauritius with personal initiative enough to try and develop poultry-keeping in Mauritius in the same way?

It may be objected that the intensive cultivation as practised in Barbados is not possible in Mauritius. To such an objection, I ask in reply: “When has it been tried? And who gave it a fair trial?” It would seem well worthwhile for the Department of Agriculture to give such intensive cultivation a fair trial; preferably not on a demonstration plot of its own, but, in a different way. I suggest that the Department call for volunteers who are peasant farmers cultivating plots of about one arpent. These volunteers would be required to work under the direction and supervision of the Department of Agriculture. They would continue to grow their normal arpent or so of sugar but would also undertake additional crops after the Barbadian pattern.

The Department of Agriculture would provide seeds, seedlings, or young plants — whichever is most appropriate — along with necessary technical advice and fertilizers. The results of such experimental intensification of land utilization would be very valuable, especially if volunteers were forthcoming from different parts of the island with diverse soil types on their plots.

Any harvest from the additional crops would of course be the property of the volunteer peasant farmers in return for their work; if the additional planting led to a fall in their normal sugar production, then two different courses of action would be possible. Either the Department of Agriculture could subsidise the farmers, paying a cash grant representing the difference between actual and anticipated return from the sugar crop; or the experiment could continue as a fertiliser trial, so that the Department could determine what would be the best fertiliser to maintain the farmers sugar production and at the same time to make it worthwhile planting the additional crops. Such an experiment on a limited scale could, were it successful, have strong repercussions on the agricultural industry of Mauritius, as well as on people’s standards of living and on the import trade.

Not that it is necessary to wait for the Department of Agriculture to help. Surely there are farmers who are willing to try on their own. Isn’t there a public-spirited estate owner who is willing to set aside one arpent of his estate and let some willing farmer try the Barbadian scheme of intensive cultivation and maximum land utilisation?

It is this high degree of land utilisation that has led Barbados to enjoy the highest standard of living in all the British Caribbean territories: higher than in metalliferous Jamaica or oil- and asphalt-producing Trinidad, higher than in the sugar-cane islands, the lime vanilla and sea-island cotton and pimento islands. It cannot be a coincidence; it is surely worth giving a trial in Mauritius.

7th Year – No 325
Friday 18th November, 1960

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 24 December 2025