Plantation

A plantation is a large piece of land (or water) where one crop is specifically planted for widespread commercial sale and usually tended by resident laborers. The crops grown include fast-growing trees (often conifers), cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, sisal, oil seeds (e.g. oil palms), rubber trees, and various fruits. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations were located.

Among the earliest examples of plantations were the latifundia of the Roman Empire, which produced large quantities of wine and olive oil for export. Plantation agriculture grew rapidly with the increase in international trade and the development of a worldwide economy that followed the expansion of European colonial empires. Like every economic activity, it has changed over time. Earlier forms of plantation agriculture were associated with large disparities of wealth and income, foreign ownership and political influence, and exploitative social systems such as indentured labour and slavery.

Industrial plantations are established to produce a high volume of wood in a short period of time. Plantations are grown by state forestry authorities (for example, the Forestry Commission in Britain) and/or the paper and wood industries and other private landowners (such as Weyerhaeuser, Rayonier and Sierra Pacific Industries in the United States, Asia Pulp & Paper in Indonesia). Christmas trees are often grown on plantations as well. In southern and southeastern Asia, teak plantations have recently replaced the natural forest.

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