Book Description

The Rubber Workshop was held primarily to help identify priority problems facing the natural rubber industries of Southeast Asia. The focus was on the processes of structural change which had been occurring in the recent past, especially in the two major producing countries, Malaysia and Indonesia. The roles of research, technology, economic trends and policies were examined, with particular emphasis on their implications for the development of the smallholder rubber sectors. Smallholders now produce the bulk of the world's natural rubber whereas the plantation sectors had this distinction less than 25 years ago.