Final answer:
Overfarming on Caribbean plantations has caused environmental degradation, socioeconomic inequality, and reliance on cash crops, which leads to economic vulnerability and encourages migration due to the lack of local opportunities.
Step-by-step explanation:
Overfarming on plantations in the Caribbean has led to a multitude of issues, including environmental degradation, socio-economic challenges, and diminished food security. During the colonial period, land tenure problems emerged as indigenous lands were seized and monoculture plantations were established. These plantations, often involving cash crops like sugarcane and coffee, relied on an imported labor force, often through encomienda or outright slavery, which had profound social and ethnic impacts on the Caribbean. With the focus on export profits and the overuse of single crops, the land has been stripped of its nutrients leading to ecological imbalance.
In the modern context, economic dependency on cash crops continues to make Caribbean countries vulnerable to market fluctuations. When these crops fail or their prices plummet, it can plunge economies into crisis, disproportionately affecting the poor. Environmental challenges, such as hurricanes and soil erosion, aggravate these issues, further threatening the sustainability of plantation economies and compelling migration to seek better opportunities elsewhere.