Theory question 108
Agriculture, Fishing and Lumbering(a) List three plantation crops in Africa. (b) Outline four ways in which plantation agriculture is important. (c) Highlight three differences between plantation agriculture in West Africa and East Africa.
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(a) Rubber, oil palm, cocoa, tea, coffee, sisal, sugarcane, bananas, tobacco.
(b) Earns foreign exchange; provides employment; raw materials for industries; government revenue; brings in modern methods and research; development of infrastructure (roads, housing, hospitals) in rural areas; improved quality of produce.
(c) West Africa: mostly owned by governments or Africans and smaller in size; East Africa: largely established by Europeans (settlers) and very large estates. West Africa grows rubber, oil palm, cocoa; East Africa grows tea, coffee, sisal, pyrethrum. West Africa plantations in lowland forest; East Africa on cooler highlands. Fewer plantations in West Africa because of tsetse, land tenure and climate; East Africa had more foreign capital.
Compare ownership, crops and location in (c).