Question

Refer to the passage. "What really enables the colonists to make both ends meet is the crops they have the right to raise on their own account, sometimes on allotments reserved for the purpose set apart

asked Jan 13, 2022 95.8k views

Refer to the passage.

"What really enables the colonists to make both ends meet is the crops they have the right to raise on their own account, sometimes on allotments reserved for the purpose set apart from the coffee, and sometimes between the rows of the coffee-trees. They often think more of the clauses in their contract which relate to these crops than to those which determine their wages in currency. A planter told me that he had learned that a party of colonists intended to leave him after the harvest. We met some of them on the road, and I questioned them.

‘Is it true that you are engaged to work on Senhor B—’s fazenda for the coming year?’

‘Yes.’

‘What reason have you for changing your fazenda? Will you be better paid there? Don’t you get over £6 a thousand trees here?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much do they offer you over there?’

‘Only £4.’

‘Then why do you go?’

‘Because there we can plant our maize among the coffee.’

The culture of coffee is thus combined with that of alimentary crops. Almost all the world over the important industrial crops have to make room in the neighborhood for food crops.”

Excerpt from Brazil by Pierre Denis, ca. 1911, describing large Brazilian coffee plantations known as fazendas

Which of the following factors contributed the most to the labor conditions described in the passage?

Worldwide demand for cash crops led laborers to migrate to new environments.
Mechanization had forced laborers to seek employment in farming communities.
Bans on slavery forced landowners to provide better working conditions to attract laborers.
Laborers were more concerned with steady work than the amount of pay that they received.