Coffee, Ceylon and Kew Gardens: the hard work of maintaining a plantation system through plantation science

Plantation agriculture contains a central paradox: the very formula which makes it productive, also makes it susceptible to the existential threat of crop disease. This article explores this paradox in the coffee plantations of nineteenth-century Ceylon which were threatened by the pathological fungus Hemelia vastatrix (coffee leaf rust), analysing the response led by Kew Gardens. Ultimately, the story of coffee plantations in Ceylon is of failure, but the planation system endured after being reworked with cinchona and tea. The article examines Kew's response and why coffee plantations failed but the plantation system was maintained. The article develops the concept of plantation science to term this maintenance, arguing acts of knowing conducted by actors become the basis for subsequent acts of management. Using the analytics of plantation science indicates the hard work of maintaining the plantation system. The plantation system is dominant, but that domination requires effort, and exploring that effort shows its relative precarity. The article uses Kew Garden's archives to offer empirical insight into a colonial plantation system, imperial Kew Gardens and a contested scientific response. The article concludes with reflections on the durability of the plantation, and the intersection of the plantation science and climate change adaptation.