Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: The Economy
139,000 hectares, in the late 1980s. By 1991 with the construction
of several dams the irrigated area was estimated at 225,000
hectares.
Cash Crops
Despite ongoing diversification efforts since the late 1980s,
the Dominican Republic in the late 1990s continues to be a
major world producer of sugarcane. The sugar industry has an
impact on all sectors of the economy and epitomizes the
nation's vulnerability to outside forces. Fluctuating world
prices, adjustments to United States sugar quotas, and the
actions of United States sugar companies (such as Gulf and
Western Corporation's sale of all its Dominican holdings in
1985) all could determine the pace of economic development
for decades.
Columbus introduced sugarcane to Hispaniola, but sugar
plantations did not flourish in the Dominican Republic until
the 1870s, much later than on most Caribbean islands. Investment
by United States sugar companies, such as the United
States South Porto Rico Company and the Cuban-Dominican
Sugar Company, rapidly transformed the Dominican economy.
These companies had established themselves by the 1890s, and
between 1896 and 1905 sugar output tripled. During the
United States occupation (1916-24), the sugar industry
expanded further, acquiring control of major banking and
transportation enterprises.
Beginning in 1948, Trujillo constructed a string of sugar
mills, many of which he owned personally. The elimination of
United States sugar quotas for Cuba after the Cuban revolution
of 1959 further enhanced the economic role of sugar because
the Dominican Republic assumed Cuba's former status as the
main supplier under the quota system.
Heavy reliance on sugar has created a number of economic
difficulties. The harvest of sugarcane, the zafra, is arduous,
labor-intensive, and seasonal, and it leaves many unemployed
during the tiempo muerto, or dead season. Haitian laborers have
harvested most of the Dominican cane crop since the late nineteenth
century, by agreement between Hispaniola's two governments.
Although Haitian cane cutters live under conditions of
near slavery, two factors continue to draw them across the border:
depressed economic conditions in Haiti and the reluctance
of Dominicans to perform the backbreaking, poorly
regarded work of cane cutting.
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