Plantation economy

Prominent crops included cotton, rubber, sugar cane, tobacco, figs, rice, kapok, sisal, Red Sandalwood, and species in the genus Indigofera, used to produce indigo dye.

Sugarcane, tea, sisal, and palm oil are most suited to plantations, while coconuts, rubber, and cotton are suitable to a lesser extent.

[1] Plantation economies are factory-like, industrialised and centralised forms of agriculture,[citation needed] owned by large corporations or affluent owners.

Under normal circumstances, plantation economies are not as efficient as small farm holdings, since there is immense difficulty in proper supervision of labour over a large land area.

[citation needed] When there are large distances between the plantations and their markets, processing can reduce the bulk of the crop and lower shipping costs.

The total number of slave owners was 385,000 (including, in Louisiana, some free African Americans), amounting to approximately 3.8% of the Southern and Border states population.

Mahatma Gandhi's investigation of indigo workers' claims of exploitation led to the passage of the Champaran Agrarian Bill in 1917 by the British colonial government.

In Southeast Asia British and Dutch colonies established plantations to produce agricultural commodity products including tea, pepper and other spices, palm oil, coffee, and rubber.