Cultivation System

Requiring a portion of agricultural production to be devoted to export crops, it is referred to by Indonesian historians as tanam paksa ("enforced planting").

In 1830, a new governor general, Johannes van den Bosch, was appointed to increase the exploitation of the Dutch East Indies' resources.

The Cultivation System was implemented only on land controlled directly by the colonial government, thus exempting the Vorstenlanden (princely states) and the particuliere landerijen (private domains).

It brought the Netherlands back from the brink of bankruptcy and made the Dutch East Indies self-sufficient and profitable extremely quickly.

As early as 1831, the policy allowed the Dutch East Indies budget to be balanced, and the surplus revenue was used to pay off debts left over from the defunct VOC régime.

[9] The cultivation system is linked, however, to famines and epidemics in the 1840s, firstly in Cirebon and then Central Java, as cash crops such as indigo and sugar had to be grown instead of rice.

Sorting tobacco leaves in Java during colonial period , in/before 1939.
Collecting natural rubbers in plantation in Java. Rubber tree was introduced by the Dutch from South America .