Agro-extractivism as colonial legacy: The case of tea in British Ceylon and modern Sri Lanka

The article shows how agro-extractivism is built upon deep historical structures of exploitation that comprise legacies of colonialism in a former colony. Using the case of tea as a key symbolic commodity in the British Empire cultivated in Ceylon under British rule, it asks for continuities and change from colonial agriculture to contemporary agro-extractivism in modern Sri Lanka. The contribution investigates the origins of current extractive agri-food systems, found in features such as economies of scale, low-paid plantation labour, “scientific” breeding of monoculture crops, and export-oriented production based on the world market. The article explores the emergence of agro-extractivist modes in the plantation-based tea cultivation sector in British Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from the late-19th to 20th century and compares it to the current state of the tea industry in the country. It engages with arguments from a historically informed political ecology using the concepts of agro-extractivism and commodity frontier for the first time in this context. The article centres on a) the longue durée, b) the intertwined character of exploiting human and non-human nature and c) the persistence and permutation of colonial structures on the agro-extractivist commodity frontier. Extremely unequal labour relations persist in the post-colonial tea landscape as agro-extractive modes of production are inscribed into physical and human geographies. • Agro-extractivism is built on historical structures of colonialist exploitation. • British Ceylon's tea production system showed characteristics of agro-extractivism. • Despite profound changes colonial roots are evident in Sri Lankan tea estates today. • The tea commodity frontier in modern-day Sri Lanka shows clear signs of exhaustion.