Colony of North Borneo annual report.

  • British North Borneo
Date:
[1959]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Colony of North Borneo annual report. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    80/274 page 60
    AGRICULTURE After the previous two very dry years, weather conditions in 1959 were generally favourable, the total rainfall being average in most districts and well distributed throughout the year. The 1958-59 padi crop yielded satisfactorily and the 1959-60 crop has grown well with prospects of a bumper harvest. Rubber continued to be the Colony’s most important cash crop and a further expansion of acreage has been stimulated by the high prices prevailing towards the end of the year. In the Quoin Hill area near Tawau some 9,000 acres of fertile basaltic soils were alienated for cocoa and satisfactory progress made in opening up the land. Soil surveys continued, confirming the existence of considerable areas of volcanic soils in the Labuk Valley. There has been a growing awareness of the agricultural potential of the country. Rice The 1958/59 padi crop was up to average with an estimated yield of 55,700 tons of padi (equivalent to 34,540 tons of rice). This was an increase of nineteen per cent over the disappointing 1957/58 crop. The area under wet padi increased to 46,000 acres of which some 17,000 acres, or thirty-seven per cent of the total padi area, is under irrigation from major pumping headworks at Tuaran and Papar with minor irrigation schemes in operation in the Keningau, Tenghilan and Kota Belud districts. Prospects for the 1959/60 padi crop are bright, although the acreage of hill padi may well be reduced owing to wet weather which precluded a successful burn after felling and clearing the land. Rubber Rubber estates and smallholdings are largely concentrated in the West Coast and Interior Residencies, but small-holders in the East Coast and Tawau areas continued this year to plant rubber in increasing numbers. The total acreage under rubber at the end of 1959 was 161,384 of which 93,771 acres are owned by small-holders and the balance by estates of 250 acres and over. The acreage of high-yielding rubber, most of which has been planted since 1955, rose to 57,073 acres or thirty-five per cent of the total. A very small amount of this was brought into production during the year but successive years should show considerable areas reaching maturity with a corresponding increase in export figures. Production rose in 1959 to a figure of 22,890 tons (an increase of 2,655 tons over 1959) worth $47 million. The price of rubber rose from £211 per ton in January to £254 per ton in May; after a set-back in June and July it again rallied and reached £303 per ton in November and December.
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