Alcan Jamaica Company and Small-Scale Agriculture : An Analysis of competing Land Uses and changing Land-Use Patterns

Auteur(s) : Stirling, Terri M.

• Notice du document

  Titre / Title

  Alcan Jamaica Company and Small-Scale Agriculture : An Analysis of competing Land Uses and changing Land-Use Patterns

  Auteur(s) / Author(s)

  Stirling Terri M., auteur principal

  Type de document

  Master

  Publication

  Saskatchewan (Canada), 1999

  Description technique / Physical description

  119 p.

• Description

  • Résumé / Abstract

    When land intensive transnational mining corporations become large-scale land owners and land managers in the developing world, corporate land-use decisions become important indicators of the impact of mining on rural agricultural landscapes. This thesis addresses this issue by examining the impact of Alcan's bauxite mining and subsequent land-use decisions on small-scale agricultural production in central Jamaica. The thesis maps the change in land-use patterns that have resulted from mining operations and examines the role that land tenure security plays in detennining the spatial structure of small-scale agricultural land use patterns in the study area. The research demonstrates that Alcan's land-use decisions continue to create significant spatial variation in the type of agricultural land use and in the economic well-being of the tenant farmer population in the study area. A number of hypotheses conceming Alcan and tenant farmers are developed and tested using data generated from a questionnaire interview. Indicators of emerging land-use patterns are analyzed. Specifically, soil quality, crop choice, land availability, economic well-being and tenant farmer dependence on Alcan are statistically tested. Results indicate a distinct spatial distribution of land uses which stem directly from Alcan's mining. reclamation and land restoration initiatives. Terms of tenure are responsible, to an extent, for agricultural land-use decisions made by tenant farmers. More importantly, however. is the evidence that poor soil quality, minimal crop diversity and a diminishing amount of land for local farmers are associated with Alcan's "post-mining" landscape that bas resulted from Alcan's Iand-use decision-making processes.

  • Notes sur le contenu

    A theis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Geography, University of Regina