Following an environmental infertility crisis, guano fertilisation became an important part of Cape colonial agriculture in the nineteenth century. Collected from various offshore islands, guanopreneurs initially exported the product directly to its main markets in Europe and America. Because of a strong local demand for state-subsidised guano, a central storage fa...

The guano frontier originated as a geographic space for a socio-cultural resource central to the identity, lifestyle and worldview of the indigenous Peruvians. Colonisation in combination with advances in understandings of plant nutrition and fertiliser science, however, shifted guano's meaning from its original roots and turned it into a globally tradable commodit...