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Abstract
The Caribbean archipelago is a mosaic of languages, cultures, and cuisines, resulting in differential preferences regarding foods, including fruits. The relative importance of fruit crops in the Caribbean depends on their value as export crops and on their value in domestic markets. Several fruit crops were commercially important (with ups and downs) in many Caribbean islands throughout most of the 20th century and even before, remaining important to date and possibly for decades to come. Other crops have been important in one or several islands, but not in the other islands of the Caribbean. This paper is a review of fruit crops, situations and tendencies in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.
Exploration in the Caribbean often evokes thoughts of conquest, treasures, pirates, and tropical beaches. This paper explores the treasures of fruit crops in two Caribbean islands, Hispaniola (comprising the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and Puerto Rico. With alternating good and bad market periods, in both islands sugarcane (Saccharum spp.), coffee (Cqffea spp.), tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.), cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) and cattle (Bos spp.) have been leading agricultural commodities since the era of European colonization starting in 1492. All of these commodities are easy to process into long-lasting products (sugar, roasted coffee, cocoa and chocolate, cigars, leather and salted beef) that could be shipped to international markets with the transportation available in the 15th to 19th centuries without important deterioration. The slow overseas transportation systems, lack of refrigeration and controlled atmosphere technology for fresh fruit, and relatively crude processing technology at the time were major factors in the slow development of large commercial fruit orchards in the Caribbean region. Thus, until the 20th century, fruit crops were minor components in the agricultural economy of the Caribbean, with consumption directed to nearby markets.
Production of fruit crops in the Caribbean islands was not organized on a larger scale or commercially oriented until banana (Musa) and pineapple (Ananas comosus [L.] Merr.) plantations were established for export as fresh fruit and/or processed products to the U.S. and Europe in the early 20th century, with the advent of better transportation and conservation technology for fresh fruits and improved processing technology. The expansion of the urban population in the islands and in major export...