ABSTRACT
An understanding of agriculture in the West Indies is the key to understanding all other elements of Caribbean society; specifically because agriculture has played a central role in the economic, social, and political evolution of the region. The structure of the plantation economy, however, limited the possible contribution of agriculture to development, owing mainly to the foreign ownership of the plantations, the high import content of plantation investment, and the relatively high consumer import propensity. The contemporary sociocultural structure of the West Indies is also directly rooted in the plantation economy. In the Eastern Caribbean Less Developed Countries (LDC), agriculture was the single largest source of employment in 1970, accounting for 32% of the employed population in the LDCs. The Eastern Caribbean territories have been much more limited in their capability to mount agricultural programs because of their lack of research and administrative resources, and virtually no agricultural planning on a national level has occurred in this subregion.
