Most of the land on the plateau is held in small plots, such that production, whether for export or for local consumption, is carried out on peasant holdings. The peasantry traditionally devotes some part of its land to the cultivation of coffee for export. Since law forbids the cutting of coffee trees, and since world market prices in recent years have not encouraged the expansion of coffee cultivation, variations in the amount produced have been conditioned mainly by changes in climate, hurricane damage, and the apparently reduced labor investment cultivators have been willing to make in their coffee lands. Though it is not possible to obtain statistical confirmation, it seems certain that the production of crops for subsistence and for internal exchange has risen during the past ten years. Sisal production, which expanded sharply in the region around the start of this decade, is now declining, in accord with the decline in world market prices. Probably the Fond-des-Negres region