Question

The economies of the West Indies islands depended on ________.

Answer 1

Hint: West Indies, Spanish Indias Occidentales, French Indes Occidentales, Dutch West-Indies are a crescent-shaped group of islands which are more than two thousand miles long separate the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The West Indies can be characterized as a predominantly free-enterprise market region.

Complete answer: Agriculture is the traditional basis of the economies of the West Indies. Along with contributing to the overall Gross Domestic Product rate, agriculture also provides to the domestic food supply and gives employment too. It is said to be the major land-use activity.
But production and employment in agriculture have been declining. Most countries are not self-sufficient in food production. So, cereals primarily wheat, are the main imports. Sugar, bananas, citrus, cocoa and spices are the chief exports and also the major source of foreign exchange for many countries. Hence, to reduce the vulnerability to external markets, countries have resorted to the diversification of their agricultural produce.
In an attempt to overcome the problems of small size and dependence on a few export items, the countries have formed a number of economic unions like the Central American Common Market, the Caribbean Community, etc.

Note: One of the countries, Cuba has managed to break the common pattern of the economic dependence on one or two main cash crops that are very usual in the West Indies. Traditionally it was dependent on the sugar industry, but now it has attempted to diversify its economy by increasing the import of capital goods to use for its new industries.