Chapter : 1. The Making of a Global World
By 1890, a global agricultural economy had taken shape. Food no longer came from a nearby village or town, but from thousands of miles away. It was grown by a peasant working on a large farm, was transported by railway and ships from southern Europe, Asia Africa and the Caribbean. The British Indian government in Punjab built a network of irrigation canals to transform semi-desert wastes into fertile agricultural lands that could grow wheat and cotton for export. The Canal colonies, as the areas irrigated by the new canals were called, were settled by peasants from other parts of Punjab.
So rapidly did regional specialisation in the production of commodities (cotton and rubber) developed that between 1820 and 1914 world trade is estimated to have multiplied 25 to 40 times. Nearly 60 percent of this trade comprised 'Primary products' - such as wheat and cotton, and minerals such as coal.
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