A Comparative Study of Two Sugarcane Regions in the Philippines (1830-1920)

This is a study of two sugarcane regions in the Philippines to analyze their economic structures from the end of the Spanish colonial period to the early American period. During the late 19th century and the early 20th century, the province of Pampanga in Central Luzon Plain and Negros Island in Visayan region were two important sugarcane regions in the Philippines. However, there was a striking differense in the sugarcane agriculture between these regions. While in Pampanga the producing system of sugarcane agriculture was based on the landlord-tenant relationship in this period, the twage labor system became the dominant system in sugarcane farms in Negros by the end of the 19th century. Why was the production system different between Pampanga and Negros ? What were main factors to differentiate the production system between them ? It is the main theme of this paper to clarify the major factors which determined the production system in sugarcane agriculture of the Philippines. When we compare the economic structure of Pampanga and Negros, we may notice the in portance of rice agriculture and the existence of smaller farms in Pampanga as the impedimental factors to develop the wage labor system. While Negros transformed fro almost a deserted island into one of the most important sugar regions in the Philippines during the late 19th century, Pampanga had been basically a rice region by the middle of the 19th century, and even after the growth of sugar industry, rice agriculture still played an important role for the economy in this province. In other words, the production system of sugarcane agriculture was determined by that of rice agriculture in Pampanga, while in Negros the wage labor system grew without being impeded by the traditional economic system. Secondly the average size of sugarcane farms was different between Pampanga and Negros. In the early 20th century, the average size of sugarcane farms in Pampanga was about 70 hectares, while the size of most of farms in Negros exceeded 100 hectares and their avarage was 140 hectares. The existence of smaller farms in Pampanga was disadvantageous to the formation of the wage labor system. In Negros the introduction of foreign mills such as iron mills run by animal power and steam mills was the driving force to transform the production system based on the landlord-tanant relationship into the wage labor system in larger farms. However, in Pampanga it is most probable that the technological innovation in sugar processing could not become one of the major factors to change the production system in sugarcane agriculture due to the comparatively smaller size of farms. Thus, the scattered type of landholding in Pampanga formed a striking contrast with the hacienda system in Negros as a determinative factor for the production system.