Agriculture In The Dominican Republic

Author : United States Department Of Agriculture
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9780265086025
Total Pages : 62 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (86 download)

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Download or read book The Dominican Republic written by United States Department Of Agriculture and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Dominican Republic: Agriculture and Trade The Dominican Republic, situated in the heart of the Caribbean, is often termed the Cradle of the Americas. Santo Domingo, the capital, is the oldest permanent settlement of European origin in the Americas. While the Spaniards were pushing out toward continental America, this settlement became the hub of Spanish influence in the New World. The original Indian strain found in the country has long since lost its identity in the population. Today the principal racial strains are comprised of the descendants of the early Spanish colonists and of Negro slaves imported from Africa. About 15 percent of the population is white, 15-percent Negro, and 70 percent of mixed blood. Like most of the Latin American countries, the Dominican Republic depends on a small number of agricultural products for its income. Agricultural activities have long been directed largely to the production of the major export crops, particularly sugar. Not only does the country lean heavily on sugar exports to provide foreign exchange, but internal trade and employment are widely influenced by the foreign market which determines how much, and at what price, sugar can be sold abroad. The industrial sector is small but growing. Processing sugarcane is the principal industry, but other established plants are turning out cement; glass; textiles; bags, rope, and binder twine of sisal; such products as soaps, detergents, and toothpaste; cement and asbestos water pipe; furfural; flour; and meat and dairy products. In addition, there are several shoe and leather goods factories, garment factories, and many other smaller industries in the country. The Government is encouraging foreign investment, and in October 1962 passed a law which provided greater protection to agents of foreign firms. Principal products mined and exported are bauxite, salt, gypsum, and iron ore. The country contains fairly large deposits of nickel-bearing ore that are being developed. Although drilling for oil continues, so far it has not been discovered in commercial quantities. As there is no coal, gas, or oil produced in the country, fuels most commonly used are bagasse (used in some sugar mills) and locally produced charcoal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.