Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g7rbq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-27T00:28:03.098Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Plantation in Malaysian Economic Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

Extract

Plantations, which originated as agricultural enterprises within colonial economic systems and which came to be established particularly in tropical dependencies, have occupied an equivocal position in the economic development philosophies and plans of less developed countries. Their colonial origin and their traditionally export-oriented and often mono-cultural characteristics have subjected them to a wide range of adverse criticism, despite their undoubted earning capacity.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Zimmermann, E. W., World Resources and Industries (New York, 1951).Google Scholar

2 Nurkse, R., Patterns of Trade and Development (Oxford, 1961).Google Scholar

3 Johnson, H. G., Economic Policies towards Less Developed Countries (London, 1967).Google Scholar

4 Morgan, T., “The Long-Run Terms of Trade between Agriculture and Manufacturing”, Economic Development and Cultural Change 8 (1959): l23CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Swerling, B. C., “Some Interrelationships between Agricultural Trade and Economic Development”, Kyklos 14 (1961): 364–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Mackie, J. A. C., “Indonesia's Government Estates and Their Masters”, Pacific Affairs 34 (1961): 337–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Robertson, C. J., “The Integration of Plantation Agriculture in Economic Planning with Special Reference to Southeast Asia”, Pacific Viewpoints (1963): 17.Google Scholar

7 Bank Negara, Malaysia, Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, 1977 (Kuala Lumpur, 1977)Google Scholar.

8 Includin g FELDA and some RISDA schemes - see below.

9 Jackson, J. C., “Towards an Understanding of Plantation Agriculture”, Area 4 (1969): 3641.Google Scholar

10 In 1958, Wickizer stated “the plantation system is inherently an efficient form of organization for production of many tropical crops. If and when … newer political entities grow more prosperous and feel greater security in their autonomy, the plantation system may come to be viewed more favourably than it has been in recent years.” (Wickizer, V. D., “The Plantation System in the Development of Tropical Economies”, Journal of Farm Economics 40 (1958): 6477CrossRefGoogle Scholar). This situation may well be coming about in Malaysia.

11 Higman, B. W., “Plantations and Typological Problems in Geography”, Australian Geographer 11 (1969): 192203CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Courtenay, P. P., “An Approach to the Definition of the Plantation”, Geographica Polonica 19 (1970): 8191Google Scholar; Courtenay, P. P., Plantation Agriculture, 2nd ed. (London, 1979)Google Scholar.

12 The fact that some plantations may operate inefficiently does not invalidate the general argument.

13 Keong, Voon Phin, “The Rubber Smallholding Industry in Selangor, 1895-1920”, Journal of Tropical Geography 24 (1967): 4349.Google Scholar

14 Bauer, P. T., The Rubber Industry (London, 1948).Google Scholar

15 Straits Settlements Colonial Report, 1912.

16 Gullick, J. M., “Kuala Lumpur, 1880-1895”, Journal of the Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society 28 (1955): 5169.Google Scholar

17 Whittlesey, C. R., Government Control of Crude Rubber (Princeton, 1931).Google Scholar

18 Yah, LimChong, Economic Development of Modern Malaya (Kuala Lumpur, 1967), pp. 329–32.Google Scholar

19 W. A. Lewis, “Developing Colonial Agriculture”, Tropical Agriculture 21 (1950): 63–73.

20 Aziz, Ungku, Subdivision of Estates in Malaya, 1951–1960 (Kuala Lumpur, 1962).Google Scholar

21 Rudner, M., “Malayan Rubber Policy: Development and Anti-Development during the 1950s”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 7 (1976): 235–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Robertson, op. cit.

23 Drabble, J., Rubber in Malaya, 1876–1922 (Kuala Lumpur, 1973).Google Scholar

24 Excluding tea and coconuts, which are not included in subsequent references to plantation area in this paper. In 1975, these minor plantation crops occupied almost 20, 000 ha.

25 The “loss” of estate area by subdivision was partly compensated for by some new planting on reserve lands by “non-subdivided” estates. It is also likely that many subdivisions remained above the 40 ha/100 acre statistical threshold and thus technically remained plantations. This undoubtedly contributed t o the change in size distribution mentioned earlier.

26 The changes briefly summarized in these paragraphs are examined in more detail in Courtenay, P. P., “Some Trends in the Malaysian Plantation Sector, 1963–1973”, in Issues in Malaysian Development, ed. Jackson, J. C. and Rudner, Martin (1979)Google Scholar.

27 Lim, op. cit.

28 Production from rubber estates reached a peak of 673, 600 tons in 1973, from which there has since been a slight decline.

29 This tonnage was produced by factories on estates. A further 482, 667 tons were produced by factories off estates. Much of the fruit for this production would have originated on estates whose yielding oil palm area was as yet too small to support their own factory.

30 Including Japanese and Singaporean as well as European.

31 Lim, op. cit.

32 The east coast states were arguing for rubber planting as a key to regional economic development in the early 1960s when the official insistence was that rural areas should be relieved of their dependence oh rubber (Rudner, op. cit. ).

33 Drabble, op. cit.

34 Wong, F. T., The Present Land Use of Kedah (Kuala Lumpur, 1970).Google Scholar

35 As a sampling frame, this list proved to be somewhat deficient since the 1975 Rubber Statistics Handbook lists 347 estates in the three states (301 in Kedah and Perlis, 46 in Pinang). It may be that the mailing addresses, the only initial indicators of location, may in some instances have been outside the three states.

36 Department of Statistics, 1970 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, 1972).Google ScholarPubMed

37 Jacoby, E. H., Agrarian Unrest in Southeast Asia (London, 1961).Google Scholar

39 Manshard, W., Tropical Agriculture (London, 1974).Google Scholar

40 Young, R. C., “The Plantation Economy and Industrial Development in Latin America”, Economic Development and Cultural Change 18 (1970): 342–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 , Jackson, op. cit., pp. 3641.Google Scholar

42 Md. Nor Abdullah, “Agricultural Institutions: The Role of RISDA”, Malaysian Economic Association, Second Malaysian Economic Convention (1974).

43 Third Malaysia Plan, 1976–1980 (Kuala Lumpur, 1976).Google Scholar

44 McHale, T. R., “Rubber Smallholdings in Malaya: Their Changing Nature, Role and Prospects”, Malayan Economic Review 10 (1965): 3548.Google Scholar

45 Fernandez, D. Z., Hawley, A. H., and Pridaza, S., The Population of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, 1976).Google ScholarPubMed

46 Md. Nor, op. cit.

47 Sin, Tan Siew, Chairman Sime Darby Holdings, reported in Far Eastern Economic Review, no. 37 (15 Sept. 1978).Google Scholar