Agriculture in the Malaysian Region

Chapter 1. Historical Background

Historical Background 1 1 CHAPTER 1 Historical Background Malaysia in the 1970s was, above all, an excellent example of a postcolonial dependent economy. While the proportion of agricultural land owned by foreign interests had steadily fallen since independence in 1957, the export economy still relied significantly upon the export of relatively littleprocessed raw materials of agricultural origin. For example, in 1975, 58 per cent of exports by value were agricultural in origin. They consisted mainly of latex, crude rubber and palm oil. Dependence was further shown by the fact that four-fifths of all exports went to Western countries (including the Soviet Union) and Japan either directly or via Singapore. The markets to which Malaysia sold its agricultural exports were basically controlled by the consuming countries and, since these were, and are mainly in the West, it may be concluded that these markets are largely controlled by the forces of international capitalism. This, however, is only part of the story. It is also important to understand why and how export-oriented capitalist agriculture co-existed with only partly commercialized peasant agriculture, and how an intermediate type of agriculture based upon export crops but organized along peasant lines came into existence. Capitalist agriculture in Malaysia and Singapore began on the island of Pinang at the very end of the eighteenth century with the planting of spices such as pepper, nutmegs and cloves, though Malays in Kedah had been growing pepper for export as early as the seventeenth century. The early European-owned plantations at Pinang, and from the 1820s at Singapore, failed to achieve any lasting success and it was Chinese entrepreneurs in Singapore and subsequently in Johor, Melaka and Negeri Sembilan who grew pepper, gambier (Uncaria gambir)1 and subsequently 1 Gambier was used as an agent in the tanning of hides. 2 Agriculture in the Malaysian Region manioc, with real though short-lived success (Jackson 1968). Since production was for export, access to Singapore and Melaka was important and cultivation was, therefore, limited to hitherto vacant land along the valleys of southern and western Johor and to within a radius of some 40 km of Melaka town. These crops gave considerable profits for a relatively limited capital investment and required no great skill. But by nature the crops were exhausting of soil nutrients and this robber economy thus involved the abandonment of planted areas as yields fell. New areas were then cleared of forest, leaving the formerly planted areas as barren wastes of secondary vegetation. European agricultural entrepreneurs were much less willing than the Chinese to move beyond the confines of direct British political control which until the 1870s remained confined to Pinang, Melaka and Singapore . But with the extension of British political domination to what in 1897 became the Federated Malay States, British commercial interests expanded to Perak and Selangor especially. Rather less interest was shown in Pahang, where transportation difficulties and distance from established urban nodes hindered development, and in Negeri Sembilan, where much of the lowland was already densely populated. In the lowlands of Province Wellesley, European- and Chineseowned sugar plantations enjoyed considerable success between 1870 and 1900, but by 1914 this industry had become moribund. It was largely in Selangor and Perak that from the 1880s European plantation interests, many originally from Ceylon, finally succeeded in laying the basis for subsequent developments. Coffee was the main crop and its cultivation was important in that land was cleared, minor roads were constructed, capital was invested and labour was introduced from southern India, mainly from Tamil Nadu. The colonial administration provided land on easy terms, since it was abundant and extremely cheap in the almost entire absence of economic infrastructure. Government also assisted the immigration of agricultural labour for plantations and also assisted people from other parts of the Malay realm to settle on the land. It also provided basic transportation and administrative services. These developments greatly assisted the spread of rubber-growing, which effectively began in 1898. Expansion was promoted by the rising demand for rubber in the industrial West, particularly for use in the electrical and rubber clothing industries and, from about 1910, a strong demand for rubber vehicle tyres developed. By 1922, rubber in Malaya (now Peninsular Malaysia) occupied 915,000 ha, representing 53 per cent of the world’s area. Of this area 46 per cent was owned by Asians, both Historical Background 3 as estates and small-holdings. The areal...