Plantation agriculture refers to commercial farming where cash crops are grown on a large scale specifically for sale.
Crops that are grown under plantation agriculture include; sugarcane, tea, sisal, coffee, pyrethrum, cloves, bananas and oil palm.
in nutshell advantages of plantation agriculture or farming include; provision of employment, a source of foreign exchange, encouraging agricultural research and development, leading to the development of infrastructure and is a source of government revenue.
the advantages named above is explained in details below
Advantages of plantation agriculture
it leads to the development of infrastructure
plantations farms have a lot of workers and in order to retain them, they develop various social amenities such as hospitals, schools, and markets.
development of these infrastructures can lead to urbanization of rural areas for example mombo town in Tanzania developed due to sisal plantations
plantation agriculture is the source of employment
due to its large scale plantations need a lot of workers to work in the farm and others to operate various machines both in the farm and processing factories.
thus plantations provide a lot of employment opportunities which may increase the standard of living in areas where the plantations are located
it source of government revenue through taxes and other levies
when plantations sell their products both domestically and internationally they pay part of their profit as taxes to the government and the government can also get other revenue from them such as skills development levy and others charges.
this increases the government tax base and enables the government to provide various services to their citizens such as hospitals, schools, and security
plantation agriculture provide foreign exchange to the economy
many crops farmed in plantations are for exports.
when the crops are exported there is an inflow of foreign currencies which enables the country to buy imports and leads to the balance of trade within the country which is good for the economy.
for example, Kenya earns a lot of foreign exchange from exporting tea and coffee to the European market.
Leads to industrial growth through provision of raw materials especially to agro-based industries
plantation agriculture promotes the growth of agro-based processing industries since they provide raw materials to them.
for example, tea processing factory in katumba tukuyu Tanzania has expanded due to raw materials provided by mo dewji tea plantations.
Plantation farms provide a market for the out-grower’s produce
to supplement the deficit for their processing factories and market demand many plantations buy crops from out-growers.
for example, kilombero sugar factory supplement their raw materials for sugar production from out-growers around kilombero district
this is important since it leads to an increase of local population income around the plantations and therefore improves their standard of living
plantation agriculture encourage agricultural research and development
Plantation farms encourage research leading to improved and better quality crops.
To ensure high-quality crops many plantations have research centers that aim at developing high yield and disease resistant seeds.
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