C
 Colonial
Economy
The concept of "colony" is historically dated and helped organize a specific
trade net where the center of the colonial empire (French, Belgian, English,
Dutch…) had a direct administrative power for planification of production
programs in these "colonies". In a hierarchic logic, these centers favoured
their own economical needs sometimes to the detriment of the population
needs of the colonized countries. This system gave birth to exchange networks
which were not based on the proximity or on the economic complementarity
of neighbouring countries but on "exchange networks binding these centers
to their colonies" During the period of decolonization (between 1950 and
1970), such commercial agreements were stopped little by little. The former
colonized countries had to join the international market, i.e. to adapt
to a strongly concurrencial environment and to the needs of new clients
or new countries.
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Food Producing
Cultures
It means both plants which can be sold and which can be transformed and
eaten by the producer. Therefore, in periods when money is short or time
difficult for sales, the farmer can always survive with his family.
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P
Perrenial
Cultures:
Such plants can last in the soils more than one year and bear fruits several
times. The best example is the tree of an orchard : once planted into
the ground, it bears fruits periodically. For a farmer this feature makes
of a cultivated land (the orchard) an investment, as a bank account producing
regular interests (the fruits).
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I
Internationnal Market
At the beginning, "the market" was a physical space of trade between a
product and its monetary value. The "market square" of some villages can
illustrate this definition. With the geographical development of the trade
and of the information connections, the market became a theoretical place
where offers are face to face with needs. Negociations now lies in agreements
between a seller and a buyer, though not a single real product is exchanged
between them. Such agreements are negociated in the frame of "commercial
exchanges ". In order to guarantee the trade rules , the transactions
are made through professional traders and by agents of big international
trading companies. Close to the knowledge of the stock exchange ups and
downs on products and currencies, these agents are the best to anticipate
prices variations and to take the best profit of it. The main Stock Exchange
markets are located in the USA, in England, in Japan. New places arise
like Singapour. Most of the tropical countries are not used to such trade
though their economic fate can depend on it.
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T
Tropical Products
In the frame of the Agropolis Museum exhibitions, the terminology "tropical
products" is narrowed to agricultural products and more specifically to
the ones cultivated on large scales in the intertropical area. Nevertheless,
this situation is not unchanging, for progress in genetic sciences can
"climatically adapt" a plant initially found in tropical ecological areas.
This is the case for the potatoes and the maïze (american corn) which
are commonly grown now in France.
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