Jh. Galloway, BOTANY IN THE SERVICE OF EMPIRE - THE BARBADOS CANE-BREEDING PROGRAM AND THE REVIVAL OF THE CARIBBEAN SUGAR-INDUSTRY, 1880S-1930S, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 86(4), 1996, pp. 682-706
This paper is a report on a scientific revolution in agriculture that
has so far largely escaped the notice of the scholarly community. In t
he late nineteenth century the Caribbean sugar industry was in a state
oi crisis caused by competition from the subsidized European sugar be
et industry and by disease in the naturally occurring varieties of sug
ar cane. The revolution consisted of breeding disease-resistant, sucro
se-rich varieties to replace the diseased ones. The cane-breeding prog
ram, based in Barbados, was successful, and was a major factor in enab
ling the Caribbean sugar industry to evolve into a modern agribusiness
. The Introduction to the paper describes the crisis in the sugar cane
industry, sets the cane-breeding program in the contest of a ''benign
kind of agricultural imperialism'' that was promoted by the Royal Bot
anic Gardens, Kew, and adopted as policy by the British Colonial Offic
e, and notes that cane breeding was part of a wider interest in the im
provement of commercially important plants. The greater part of the pa
per consists of an examination of (a) the cane-breeding program in Bar
bados and (b) the diffusion of the new varieties to other Caribbean is
lands. The career of John Redman Bovell, who was in charge of the prog
ram in Barbados, receives special attention. The paper draws on archiv
al sources as well as on the specialized literature of cane breeders.