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A Precocious Appetite: Industrial Agriculture and the Fertiliser Revolution in Java's Colonial Cane Fields, c. 1880–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2006

G. Roger Knight
G. Roger Knight
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide and may be contacted at roger.knight@adelaide.edu.au
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Abstract

Late colonial sugar cane production in Java was characterised by the heavy use of (chemical) fertiliser in tandem with labour-intensive techniques and industrial work processes in the field. This article provides a useful corrective to an overemphasis on the extractive nature of the colonial economy of sugar and shows the truly industrial nature of plantation production. For students of colonial science and agriculture, the situation has additional ramifications, relating both to the role and ‘diffusion’ of scientific knowledge and to the historical dimensions of agricultural development in ‘the tropics’.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , February 2006 , pp. 43 - 63
Copyright
2006 The National University of Singapore

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Footnotes

Research for this paper was supported by the University of Adelaide's Special Studies Programme. The author is grateful to a number of people in The Netherlands for easing the problems of an overseas researcher with their hospitality and advice. In Adelaide, my thanks must go to the indispensable Margaret Hosking, History Librarian at Adelaide's Barr-Smith Library, and to Dominic Stephanson for his valiant attempts to unscramble my prose and clear up my footnotes. Jasper van der Kerkhof and Jonathon Moore were of great assistance with statistics. The author is also indebted to the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions