Coffee production in El Salvador has fueled the Salvadoran economy and shaped its history for more than a century. Rapidly growing in the 19th century, coffee in El Salvador has traditionally provided more than 50% of the country's export revenues, reaching a peak in 1980 with a revenue of more than $615 million. With the political and economic turmoil resulting from a civil war in the 1980s, the coffee industry has struggled to recover entirely, and by 1985 earned around $403 million from coffee.[1] Brazil has been buying to sell the goods of El Salvador.
Yields of green coffee, a Salvadoran speciality declined in absolute terms from 175,000 tons in 1979 to 141,000 tons in 1986; a 19 percent drop attributed directly to decreased levels of investment caused by the war.[2] Since 2000, the industry has been greatly affected by increased competition from other countries on the world market, whose cheaper coffee beans have caused prices to plummet. As of 2002 coffee trading is only responsible for 3.5% of El Salvador's GNP and over 90% of El Salvador's coffee is grown in shade coffeeplantations and around 80% of El Salvador's forests are associated with shade coffee plantations.[3][4]
Background
Dark roasted coffee beans from El Salvador.
Coffee was first cultivated in El Salvador for domestic use early in the 19th century. By mid-century its commercial promise was evident, and the government began to favor its production through legislation such as tax breaks for producers, exemption from military service for coffee workers, and elimination of export duties for new producers. By 1880 coffee had become virtually the sole export crop.[2]
Compared with Indigofera, previously the dominant export commodity, coffee was a more demanding crop. Since coffee bushes required several years to produce a usable harvest, its production required a greater commitment of capital, labor, and land than did indigo. Coffee also grew best at a certain altitude, whereas indigo flourished almost anywhere.[2]
Unlike those of Guatemala and Costa Rica, the Salvadoran coffee industry developed largely without the benefit of external technical and financial help.[2] El Salvador nonetheless became one of the most efficient coffee producers in the world. This was especially true on the large coffee plantations, where the yield per hectare increased in proportion to the size of the plantation, a rare occurrence in plantation agriculture.[2] The effect of coffee production on Salvadoran society has been immeasurable, not only in terms of land tenure but also because the coffee industry has served as a catalyst for the development of infrastructure (roads and railroads) and as a mechanism for the integration of indigenous communities into the national economy.[2]
Political obstacles
In the decades prior to the civil conflict of the 1980s, export earnings from coffee allowed growers to expand production, finance the development of a cotton industry, and establish a light manufacturing sector.[2] After 1979, however, government policies, guerrilla attacks, and natural disasters reduced investment, impeding the coffee industry's growth.[2] To make matters worse, after a price jump in 1986 world coffee prices fell by 35 percent in 1987, causing coffee exports to decline in value from US$539 million to US$347 million.[2]
Government control of coffee marketing and export was regarded as one of the strongest deterrents to investment in the industry.[2] In the first year of Incafe's existence, coffee yields dropped by over 20 percent. During each of the ensuing four years, yields were about 30 percent lower than those registered during the 1978-80 period.[2]
A Salvadoran coffee farmer.
Although the area in production remained fairly constant at approximately 180,000 hectares, production of green coffee declined in absolute terms from 175,000 tons in 1979 to 141,000 tons in 1986; this 19 percent drop was a direct result of lower yields, which in turn were attributed to decreased levels of investment.[2] According to the Salvadoran Coffee Growers Association (Asociacion Cafetalera de El Salvador—ACES), besides controlling the sale of coffee, Incafe also charged growers export taxes and service charges equal to about 50 percent of the sale price and was often late in paying growers for their coffee.
Coffee growers also suffered from guerrilla attacks, extortion, and the imposition of so-called "war taxes" during the 1980s. These difficulties, in addition to their direct impact on production, also decreased investment.[2] Under normal conditions, coffee growers replaced at least 5 percent of their coffee plants each year because the most productive coffee plants are between five and fifteen years old. Many coffee growers in El Salvador, in an effort to avoid further losses, neglected to replant.
Although most coffee production took place in the western section of El Salvador, coffee growers who operated in the eastern region were sometimes compelled to strike a modus vivendi with the guerrillas. During the 1984-85 harvest, for example, the guerrillas added to their "war tax" demand a threat to attack any plantation they thought underpaid workers.[2] They demanded that workers receive the equivalent of US$4.00 per 100 pounds picked, a US$1.00 increase over what was then the going rate.[2] The fact that growers negotiated with the guerrillas—while the government looked the other way—demonstrated the continuing importance of coffee export revenue to both the growers and the government.
Coffee would become the last of the great monoculture export commodities in El Salvador. Its widespread cultivation began in the mid-19th century as the world demand for indigo dye dried up. The huge profits that it yielded served as a further impetus for the process whereby land became concentrated in the hands of an oligarchy.[5] Although legend and radical propaganda have quantified the oligarchy at the level of the Fourteen Families, a figure of several hundred families lies much closer to the truth. A succession of presidents, nominally both conservative and liberal, throughout the last half of the 19th century supported the seizure of land from individual smallholders and communal owners.[5]
Workers on a coffee plantation in El Salvador waiting for the distribution of wages in the form of food. Photo taken by Eduard Paulig.
Despite the continued participation of conservatives, however, the period of the establishment of the coffee republic (roughly 1871 to 1927) is described commonly as the era of the liberal state in El Salvador.[5] The church was not as powerful in El Salvador as in other Latin American states at the time; therefore, the economic aspects of liberalism—an adherence to the principles of free-market capitalism—dominated the conduct of the state. Anti-clericalism was a distinctly secondary theme, expressed primarily through social legislation (such as the establishment of secular marriage and education) rather than through the kind of direct action, e.g., repression and expropriation, taken against the church in 19th- and early 20th-century Mexico.
Despite some differences over the degree of emphasis of political versus economic issues, Salvadoran liberals generally agreed on the promotion of coffee as the predominant cash crop, on the development of infrastructure (railroads and port facilities) primarily in support of the coffee trade, on the elimination of communal landholdings to facilitate further coffee production, on the passage of antivagrancy laws to ensure that displaced campesinos and other rural residents provided sufficient labor for the coffee fincas (plantations), and on the suppression of rural discontent.[5]
The coffee industry grew inexorably in El Salvador, after a somewhat tentative start in the mid-19th century. Between 1880 and 1914, the value of coffee exports rose by more than 1,100 percent.[5] Although the coffee industry itself was not taxed by the government, tremendous revenue was raised indirectly through import duties on goods imported with the foreign currencies that coffee sales earned (goods intended for the consumption of the small coffee-producing elite). From 1870 to 1914, an average of 58.7 percent of government revenue derived from this source.[5] Even if the coffee elite did not run the government directly (and many scholars argue that they did), the elite certainly provided the bulk of the government's financial support. This support, coupled with the humbler and more mundane mechanisms of corruption, ensured the coffee growers of overwhelming influence within the government and the military.[5]
The priorities of the coffee industry dictated a shift in the mission of the embryonic Salvadoran armed forces from external defense of the national territory to the maintenance of internal order. The creation of the National Guard (Guardia Nacional—GN) in 1912 epitomizes this change. The duties of the GN differed from those of the National Civil Police (Policia Nacional Civil—PNC), mainly in that GN personnel were specifically responsible for providing security on the coffee fincas. Most fincas enjoyed the services of their own GN units posted on the grounds; regional GN commanders routinely were compensated by the finca owners to ensure the continued loyalty of the guardsmen.
Suppression of rural dissent was subtle and institutionalized; campesinos generally accepted the status quo because of the implied threat of retaliation from the GN or other military units. One exception to this pattern was Aquino's rebellion. Although it predated the coffee boom, its reverberations were felt throughout Salvadoran society for decades.[5]
Throughout the period of the liberal state in El Salvador, the preeminent position of the oligarchy was never threatened by the actions of the government. Some have attributed this to the pervasive influence of the organization that has been described as the "invisible government" of the country, the Coffee Growers Association (Asociacion Cafetalera).[5] The direct (in the case of the Melendez-Quinonez mini-dynasty) and indirect connections of the presidents of the period with the country's powerful families undoubtedly came into play as well. Generally speaking, however, the system continued to function without adjustment because it worked well from the perspective of the small percentage of Salvadorans who benefited from it, namely the economic elite, upper-echelon government officials, and the military High Command.[5]
Although society in general appeared to be static under the liberal state, the same truly cannot be said for the Salvadoran oligarchy. The introduction of coffee production in itself changed the composition of that group, as the new coffee barons joined the ranks of the old plantation owners (who in many cases were slow to recognize the potential of coffee and lost some wealth and standing by delaying their switch from indigo production). New blood also was introduced into the oligarchy by way of foreign immigration. These immigrants, who would eventually come to constitute the bulk of the Salvadoran merchant class, frequently married into the landowning oligarchic families, further diversifying the composition of the elite stratum of society.
Another process worthy of note during this period despite its lack of tangible results was the ongoing series of unification efforts by the Central American states. El Salvador was a prime mover in most of these attempts to reestablish an isthmian federation. In 1872 El Salvador signed a pact of union with Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica but the union was never implemented.[5] In 1876 a congress of all five Central American states failed to achieve agreement on federation. A provisional pact signed by the five states in 1889 technically created the "Republic of Central America" - that was never realized.
Undaunted, the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua formed the "Greater Republic of Central America" (República Mayor de Centroamerica) via the Pact of Amapala (1895). Although Guatemala and Costa Rica considered joining the Greater Republic (which was rechristened "the United States of Central America" when its constitution went into effect in 1898), neither country joined. This union, which had planned to establish its capital city at Amapala on the Golfo de Fonseca, did not survive Tomas Regalado's seizure of power in El Salvador in 1898. Although the Central American spirit seemed willing, the commitment was weak. The notion of unification was another manifestation of the idealistic liberal ethos, and it proved durable and quite resistant to political realities.
Recent developments
The Ciudad Barrios Cooperative inspecting their coffee.
Coffee production flourished in El Salvador throughout much of the 20th century, reaching a peak in the late 1970s, culminating in 1980 when it was responsible for 50% of El Salvador's gross domestic product (GDP). With the political and economic turmoil resulting from a civil war in the 1980s, the coffee industry struggled to recover entirely and, by 1985, earned around $403 million from coffee.[1] Yields of green coffee, a Salvadoran speciality, declined in absolute terms from 175,000 tons in 1979 to 141,000 tons in 1986; a 19% drop attributed directly to decreased levels of investment caused by the war.[2]
The coffee industry in El Salvador has shown a greater decline in recent years and since 2000, the industry has been greatly affected by increased competition from other countries on the world market, whose cheaper coffee beans have caused prices to plummet. As of 2002 coffee trading is responsible for 3.5% of El Salvador's GDP.[3] Since 2000, 70,000 have lost their jobs as a result of the rapid decline in the Salvadoran coffee trade. The heavy coffee production of the past has taken its toll on the environment in many areas of the country.
In some parts of El Salvador coffee is still highly important to the economy. The Ciudad Barrios Cooperative, for instance, operating in the Cacahuatique mountains of eastern El Salvador since the late 1970s, was producing approximately 8.5 million pounds of coffee annually until 2003.[6] The Cooperative has since been involved with organizations such as USAID which has aided small and medium-sized Salvadoran coffee producers to produce for international higher-grade coffee markets, and was awarded a Rainforest Alliance certification. Other coffee producers have also been increasingly influenced by international campaign organizations, with many producers now cultivating fair trade coffee.
Labor issues
Harvesting coffee has been determined by national law as a hazardous activity. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that 6.3% of children aged 5 to 14 were working children and that 56% of them engaged in child labor in the agricultural sector, harvesting coffee among other dangerous activities.[7] Coffee has also been listed in the department's 2014 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor among four other goods from the agricultural sector for the most part.
The economy of Angola remains heavily influenced by the effects of four decades of conflict in the last part of the 20th century, the war for independence from Portugal (1961–75) and the subsequent civil war (1975–2002). Poverty since 2002 is reduced over 50% and a third of the population relies on subsistence agriculture. Since 2002, when the 27-year civil war ended, government policy prioritized the repair and improvement of infrastructure and strengthening of political and social institutions. During the first decade of the 21st century, Angola's economy was one of the fastest-growing in the world, with reported annual average GDP growth of 11.1 percent from 2001 to 2010. High international oil prices and rising oil production contributed to strong economic growth, although with high inequality, at that time. 2022 trade surplus was $30 billion, compared to $48 billion in 2012.
El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador. The country's population in 2023 was estimated to be 6.5 million.
The economy of El Salvador has experienced relatively low rates of GDP growth, in comparison to other developing countries. Rates have not risen above the low single digits in nearly two decades – part of a broader environment of macroeconomic instability which the integration of the United States dollar has done little to improve. One problem that the Salvadoran economy faces is the inequality in the distribution of income. In 2011, El Salvador had a Gini Coefficient of .485, which although similar to that of the United States, leaves 37.8% of the population below the poverty line, due to lower aggregate income. The richest 10% of the population receives approximately 15 times the income of the poorest 40%.
The economy of Honduras is based mostly on agriculture, which accounts for 14% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013. The country's leading export is coffee (US$340 million), which accounted for 22% of the total Honduran export revenues. Bananas, formerly the country's second-largest export until being virtually wiped out by 1998's Hurricane Mitch, recovered in 2000 to 57% of pre-Mitch levels. Cultivated shrimp is another important export sector. Since the late 1970s, towns in the north began industrial production through maquiladoras, especially in San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortés.
The history of El Salvador begins with several distinct groups of Mesoamerican people, especially the Pipil, the Lenca and the Maya. In the early 16th century, the Spanish Empire conquered the territory, incorporating it into the Viceroyalty of New Spain ruled from Mexico City. In 1821, El Salvador achieved independence from Spain as part of the First Mexican Empire, only to further secede as part of the Federal Republic of Central America two years later. Upon the republic's independence in 1841, El Salvador became a sovereign state until forming a short-lived union with Honduras and Nicaragua called the Greater Republic of Central America, which lasted from 1895 to 1898.
Berlin is a municipality in the Usulután Department, in El Salvador. The municipality is also one of the four capital districts of the department. It is located at the east of El Salvador, 112 kilometers from the capital city San Salvador. The municipality of Berlin is situated in the Tecapa-Chinameca-Alegrìa mountain zone, located in the central-north of Usulután.
The Salvadoran Civil War was a twelve-year civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition of left-wing guerilla groups backed by the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro as well as the Soviet Union. A coup on 15 October 1979 followed by government killings of anti-coup protesters is widely seen as the start of civil war. The war did not formally end until after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when, on 16 January 1992 the Chapultepec Peace Accords were signed in Mexico City.
Nicaragua produces coffee, cotton, bananas, sugar and beef cattle.
Agriculture in Colombia refers to all agricultural activities, essential to food, feed, and fiber production, including all techniques for raising and processing livestock within the Republic of Colombia. Plant cultivation and livestock production have continuously abandoned subsistence agricultural practices in favour of technological farming resulting in cash crops which contribute to the economy of Colombia. The Colombian agricultural production has significant gaps in domestic and/or international human and animal sustenance needs.
Agriculture in Haiti describes the tortured agricultural history of an island nation once described as the "Pearl of the Antilles". The Taíno people were the farming inhabitants of the island when the Spanish first visited in the late 15th century. The Taino died out from European diseases and exploitation and were replaced with imported African slaves. In the 18th century, Haiti became a country of large plantations, especially of sugar cane, owned by Europeans and worked by hundreds of thousands of slaves. The slaves revolted in 1791 and gained independence from France. The plantations were broken up and the land was distributed to former slaves who primarily engaged in subsistence agriculture with coffee as their most important cash crop and as Haiti's most important export.
Angola is a potentially rich agricultural country, with fertile soils, a favourable climate, and about 57.4 million ha of agricultural land, including more than 5.0 million ha of arable land. Before independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola had a flourishing tradition of family-based farming and was self-sufficient in all major food crops except wheat. The country exported coffee and maize, as well as crops such as sisal, bananas, tobacco and cassava. By the 1990s Angola produced less than 1% the volume of coffee it had produced in the early 1970s, while production of cotton, tobacco and sugar cane had ceased almost entirely. Poor global market prices and lack of investment have severely limited the sector since independence.
Uganda's favorable soil conditions and climate have contributed to the country's agricultural success. Most areas of Uganda have usually received plenty of rain. In some years, small areas of the southeast and southwest have averaged more than 150 millimeters per month. In the north, there is often a short dry season in December and January. Temperatures vary only a few degrees above or below 20 °C but are moderated by differences in altitude.
Coffee production has played a key role in Costa Rica's history and continues to be important to the country's economy. In 2006, coffee was Costa Rica's number three export, after being the number one cash crop export for several decades. In 1997, the agriculture sector employed 28 percent of the labor force and comprised 20 percent of Costa Rica's total GNP. Production increased from 158,000 tons in 1988 to 168,000 tons in 1992. The largest growing areas are in the provinces of San José, Alajuela, Heredia, Puntarenas, and Cartago. The coffee is exported to other countries in the world and is also exported to cities in Costa Rica.
The role of agriculture in the Bolivian economy in the late 1980s expanded as the collapse of the tin industry forced the country to diversify its productive and export base. Agricultural production as a share of GDP was approximately 23 percent in 1987, compared with 30 percent in 1960 and a low of just under 17 percent in 1979. The recession of the 1980s, along with unfavorable weather conditions, particularly droughts and floods, hampered output. Agriculture employed about 46 percent of the country's labor force in 1987. Most production, with the exception of coca, focused on the domestic market and self-sufficiency in food. Agricultural exports accounted for only about 15 percent of total exports in the late 1980s, depending on weather conditions and commodity prices for agricultural goods, hydrocarbons, and minerals.
Agriculture in Suriname is the third largest industry in Suriname, in the economy, employing between 9-15% percent of the workforce, and account for 9% of GDP. Agriculture accounts for 40% of carbon emissions in Suriname, and is an important part of Suriname's policies as part of its Nationally Determined Contributions.
Afro Salvadorans are Salvadorans of Sub-Saharan African descent. They are the descendants of slaves brought to El Salvador via the Trans-atlantic slave trade during the colonial Spanish era.
Coffee has been grown in Cuba since the mid-18th century. Boosted by French farmers fleeing the revolution in Haiti, coffee farms expanded from the western plains to the nearby mountain ranges. Coffee production in eastern Cuba significantly increased during the 19th and early 20th centuries. At its peak production, Cuba exported more than 20,000 metric tons of coffee beans per year in the mid-1950s. After the Cuban Revolution and the nationalization of the coffee industry, coffee production slowly began to decline until it reached all time lows during the Great Recession. Once a major Cuban export, it now makes up an insignificant portion of Cuban trade. By the 21st century, 92 percent of the country's coffee was grown in area of the Sierra Maestra mountains. All Cuban coffee is exported by Cubaexport, which pays regulated prices to coffee growers and processors.
Aida Batlle is a Salvadoran coffee farmer and businesswoman. She won El Salvador's inaugural Cup of Excellence competition in 2003 with her Finca Kilimanjaro, one year after she began farming coffee.
Anarchism in El Salvador reached its peak during the labour movement of the 1920s, in which anarcho-syndicalists played a leading role. The movement was subsequently suppressed by the military dictatorship before experiencing a resurgence in the 21st century.
Swiss Salvadorans are Salvadoran citizens with Swiss ancestry. There are currently 506 Swiss citizens residing in El Salvador. In El Salvador there are many people with Swiss ancestry.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
