Sugar Monoculture: How One Crop Destroyed an Economy (1900-1940)

The deliberate conversion of Puerto Rico's economy to sugar monoculture is one of the most consequential colonial policies in the island's history — and its effects persist today.

Before 1898: Puerto Rico had a relatively diversified agricultural economy:
- Coffee (~75% of export revenue) — mostly Puerto Rican-owned
- Sugar (~21% of export revenue) — mix of local and foreign ownership
- Tobacco — locally grown and processed
- Subsistence farming — rural communities grew their own food
- Trade with Europe, Latin America, and other Caribbean islands

The Transformation (1900-1930):
American colonial policy systematically favored sugar over all other crops:
1. Tariff policy: U.S. tariffs opened the mainland market to Puerto Rican sugar but closed Puerto Rico's European coffee markets
2. Credit policy: American banks offered favorable credit to sugar corporations but not to coffee or subsistence farmers
3. Land consolidation: American corporations violated the 500-acre law, accumulating tens of thousands of acres of the best agricultural land
4. Currency devaluation: The forced switch from the peso to the dollar (at a disadvantageous exchange rate) impoverished Puerto Rican farmers who owed debts in pesos
5. Hurricane damage: Hurricane San Ciriaco (1899) devastated coffee; the colonial government helped rebuild sugar infrastructure but not coffee
6. Transportation: Sugar corporations controlled railroads and port facilities

The Sugar Corporations:
By 1930, four American corporations controlled Puerto Rico's sugar economy:
- South Porto Rico Sugar Company (~12,000 acres)
- Fajardo Sugar Company (~11,000 acres)
- Central Aguirre Sugar Company (~9,000 acres)
- Guánica Centrale (~15,000 acres)
Together they controlled over 170,000 acres — the best agricultural land on the island.

The Human Cost:
- Puerto Rican hacendados (coffee/agricultural estate owners) were ruined
- Subsistence farmers lost land and became wage laborers on sugar plantations
- The rural economy became entirely dependent on one crop
- Seasonal unemployment was devastating: sugar harvest lasted only months, leaving workers idle
- Food self-sufficiency was destroyed — Puerto Rico began importing food it had previously grown
- The jíbaro — the independent farmer — became a landless worker

Legacy: The sugar monoculture laid the foundation for every subsequent economic crisis:
- When sugar declined (1930s-1960s), there was nothing to replace it
- Operation Bootstrap replaced agricultural extraction with industrial extraction
- Today, Puerto Rico imports 85% of its food — a direct legacy of the destruction of agricultural diversity
- The pattern of external control of the economy (first sugar corporations, then pharmaceutical companies, then hedge funds) began with the sugar monoculture