Content deleted Content added
tidy |
ce |
||
Line 1:
[[Peasant]] agricultural production has been the predominant economic activity in [[Uganda]] since [[Early history of Uganda|precolonial times]].<ref name=":1">{{Harvnb|Clark|1992|p=98}}.</ref> Despite an active trade in [[ivory]] and [[Hide (skin)|animal hides]] linking Uganda with the east coast of Africa long before the arrival of Europeans, [[Agriculture in Uganda|most Ugandans]] were [[subsistence farmers]].<ref name=":1" /> After [[Uganda Protectorate|declaring Uganda a protectorate]] in 1893, Britain pursued economic policies that drew Uganda into the world economy primarily to serve Britain's late-19th-century [[textile industry]].<ref name=":1" /> [[Cotton]] cultivation increased in importance after 1904, and once it became clear that cotton plantations would be too difficult and expensive to maintain, official policy encouraged [[smallholder]] farmers to produce and market their cotton through local cooperative associations.<ref name=":1" />
By 1910 cotton had become Uganda's leading export.<ref name=":1" /> In the following decades, the government encouraged the growth of [[sugar]] and [[tea]] plantations.<ref name=":1" /> Following [[World War II]], officials introduced [[coffee]] cultivation to bolster declining export revenues, and coffee soon earned more than half of Uganda's export earnings.<ref name=":1" /> When coffee replaced cotton as Uganda's principal export in the 1950s, it was still produced in the pattern of small peasant holdings and local marketing associations that had arisen early in the century.<ref name=":2">{{Harvnb|Clark|1992|p=100}}.</ref> The economy registered substantial growth, but almost all real growth was in agriculture, centered in the southern provinces.<ref name=":2" /> The fledgling industrial sector, which emphasized [[food processing]] for export, also increased its contribution as a result of the expansion of agriculture.<ref name=":2" />
| |||