Cuban Coffee Production: An Analysis from 1950 to 2017

Abstract

Coffee production in Cuba had its highest value in 1961, and since then it has steadily decreased. We evaluate Cuban coffee production from 1950 to 2017 through a chronological series of data production (production, yield) and cultivation areas, and determine the influence of the loss of productive areas on the productive values. In this period the evaluated variables decreased significantly. The maximum production reached 60,326 tonnes in 1961, and the minimum 4,973 tonnes in 2012. The maximum yield was 0.36 tonnes ha⁻¹ in 1961 and the minimum was 0.08 tonnes ha⁻¹ in 2005. The hectares of coffee plantations decreased from 185,947.52 in 1969 to 42,296 in 2017. This decrease explains 36.8% of the decline in production. We argue that this decline is mainly due to internal factors (armed conflicts, migration, inadequate management, and economic crisis). This multifactorial process and complex situation should be considered in future studies.

Resumen

La producción de café cubana tuvo su mayor récord en 1961, luego disminuyó constantemente. Nosotros la evaluamos desde 1950 hasta 2017 a través de una serie cronológica de datos de producción (producción, rendimiento) y las áreas de cultivo. Determinamos la influencia de la pérdida de áreas productivas en los valores productivos. En este período las variables evaluadas disminuyeron significativamente. La producción máxima fue de 60,326 t en 1961 y la mínima de 4,973 t en 2012. El rendimiento máximo fue de 0.36 t ha⁻¹ en 1961 y el mínimo de 0.08 t ha⁻¹ en 2005. Las hectáreas disminuyeron de 185,947 en 1969 a 42,296 en 2017. Esta disminución explica el 36.8% de la caída de la producción Este declive se debe principalmente a factores internos (conflictos armados, migraciones, gestión inadecuada, crisis económica). Este es un proceso complejo y multifactorial, lo que debe ser considerado en futuros estudios.

Main article text

Introduction

Coffee was introduced in the West Indies through Martinique, where it arrived in 1723 (Bolívar 2008). Later, it was introduced in Cuba in 1748 by the island’s chief accountant, Don José Gelabert, who planted the first seeds from Haiti in the Wajay area (Pérez de la Riva 1944; Ramírez and Paredes 2004). After the uprising of the slaves of Haiti in 1791 and the taking of Santo Domingo by Dessalines, most of the estates and coffee plantations of Hispaniola were destroyed, producing a strong emigration to Cuba and other Caribbean islands (Álvarez and Guzmán 2013). These emigrants received support for their naturalisation, economic aid for work, and tax exemptions through the Royal Decree of 1817, a context that led to the development of coffee growing in Cuba.

At the end of the eighteenth century, coffee plantations had spread to a large part of the island, mainly to Havana, Matanzas, and Pinar del Río (Pérez de la Riva 1944; Barcia 2008). By the beginning of the nineteenth century, coffee had become fundamentally a speculative product, ceasing to be for domestic or pharmaceutical consumption (Álvarez and Guzmán 2013). The coffee production in Cuba at the end of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, was increasing from 84.1 t (tonnes) in 1790 to 29,163.1 t in 1833. In that year production began to decline due to political and economic manoeuvres by sectors of society who were opposed to the support given to the immigrants. When coffee production went into crisis, the sugar and tobacco producers took advantage of this to push the coffee industry off the agriculturally best lands towards what were the truly appropriate areas for coffee cultivation, the mountains of the old provinces of Oriente, Las Villas, and Pinar del Río (Pérez de la Riva 1944).

In 1822 the 16 French coffee plantations with the greatest production in the Sierra del Rosario cultivated an area of 55 caballerias ¹ and produced 31,390 arrobas ² (Álvarez-Estévez 2001). By 1866 there were 339 coffee plantations in the Western Department of Cuba.

After the independence wars and the creation of the Republic, in 1927 the Cuban government established a number of incentives that favourably affected coffee production. It created the Office of Coffee and Cocoa in the Agriculture Ministry, it promoted experiments with new and different types of coffee in the different coffee regions, it established economic incentives and appropriate legal measures to promote production, and it created the Cuban Institute for Coffee Stabilization (Pérez de la Riva 1944).

In 1960 Cuba became the sixth largest producer in the Caribbean area, although its exports were not important due to its high internal consumption. In 1961 the historical production record was reached with 60,000 t. After this date a decline began that has continued to the present. Despite Cuba’s disadvantageous position compared to many other countries as a coffee producer, the quality of its product is recognised in certain markets which pay for Cuban speciality coffees, such as the Japanese market (Ramajo-Destrades et al. 2013). This is the case for example for Crystal Mountain, a specialty coffee that is grown in a small sector of the mountains in the centre of the island.

In recent years the volume of coffee produced for export has decreased. This is the result of the difficulties faced by the coffee sector in Cuba: reduced resources, increased financial limitations, and the need to develop new knowledge for the implementation and management of new technologies that can increase productive values (Navarro-Ocaña et al. 2016). This constant decline in coffee production in Cuba has been analysed at different levels: for the whole country (Yero-Guevara et al. 2014; Arañó-Leyva and Verdecia-García 2016; Agüero-Contreras et al. 2017; Agüero et al. 2018), in the different producing regions (Álvarez and Guzmán 2013; García 2015), at the level of the coffee companies (Navarro-Ocaña et al. 2016), and in other local productive forms (Yero-Guevara et al. 2014; Fajardo-Martínez and Fernández-Rosales 2016). All of these covered short time periods. The objective of this study, therefore, was to analyse Cuba’s coffee production over the long run from 1950 to 2017, and in particular to identify the factors that have caused the decrease in productive yields since their peak in 1960.

Materials and Methods

Three study variables related to coffee production from 1950 to 2017 were considered: production (t_{green coffee} ), areas dedicated to production (ha) (hectares), and yield (t_{green coffee} ha^–1). The corresponding data comes from the statistical records of the Coffee Directorate of the National Agroforestry Group of the Cuban Agriculture Ministry, from which we constructed the chronological series of the study period.

The distribution of the data was verified using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The values ​​of the area dedicated to coffee production in Cuba did not follow a normal distribution, so the data set was transformed by the function log (ha).

Trends in time series of production values, areas dedicated to coffee cultivation, and yield were determined with the Mann-Kendall nonparametric hypothesis test (Gilbert 1987; Hammer 2018). In the analysis we excluded the production and yield data corresponding to 1962, the maximum value of the data series. The Student’s t-test was used in order to analyse the performance and production behaviour between harvests. Furthermore, we determine the relationship of this variable with coffee production levels using the Pearson correlation coefficient (García-Ferrando 2004)

(1) $$r=\frac{S_{yx}}{\sqrt{s_x^2{s}_y^2}}$$

And when replacing with the selected variables, we have:

(2) $$r=\frac{S_{t_{greencoffee}\log (ha)}}{\sqrt{s_{\log (ha)}^2{s}_{t_{greencoffee}}^2}}$$

where (ha) is the area dedicated to production, log(ha) is its base 10 logarithm, $S_{t_{greencoffe}\log (ha)}$ the covariance of log(ha) and t_{green coffee} , and $s_{\log (ha)}^2$ and $s_{t_{greencoffee}}^2$ the standard deviations of the variables log(ha) and t_{green coffee} , respectively.

In addition, to determine the proportion in which the loss of area dedicated to coffee production and the age of the fields influence the behaviour of coffee production, we first calculated the alienation coefficient (García-Ferrando 2004):

(3) $$AC=\sqrt{1-r^2}$$

where r is the Pearson correlation coefficient. Then to determine the variation of the coffee production (t_{green coffee} ) explained by log(ha) we used the following expression

(4) $$P=100-(AC*100)$$

where P is the proportion. To analyse the data the PAST programme version 3.10 was used (Hammer et al. 2001).

Results

Coffee production in Cuba between 1950 and 2017 has a statistically significant trend according to the Mann-Kendall test (Z = 9.385, S = −1774, p = 0.00). In the time series which is represented in Figure 1 its clear tendency to decrease in the analysed period is evident.

Figure 1

Cuban coffee production between 1950 and 2017

Source: Statistical records of the Coffee Directorate of the National Agroforestry Group of the Cuban Agriculture Ministry

The values ​​show a regularity in terms of alternating years of high and low production, having the greatest fluctuations in the period from 1952 to 1968. They obtained the highest productive values ​​between 1955 and 1967, after which there was a sharp drop in both maximum and minimum values, as well as reduced fluctuation in production between years.

During the evaluated period, production behaved significantly differently between years (t = 14.104, df = 67, p = 0.00), with a maximum of 60,326.67 t_{green coffee} in 1961, a minimum of 4,973 t_{green coffee} in 2012, and an average value of 22,773 t_{green coffee} .

Until 1969 one observes a relative stability in the number of productive hectares. After this, a constant downward trend is observed, and between 2012 and 2017 there is a slight stabilisation in the number of hectares (Figure 2).

Starting in 1969 when the area devoted to coffee production was greatest (185,947.52 ha), a decrease is observed, decreasing to 42,296 ha in 2017. The tendency of the area of land dedicated to coffee production to decrease was statistically significant (Z = 9.6369, S = −1822, p = 0.00).

A strong correlation was found (r = 0.775, p = 0.00, N = 68) when analysing the relationship between the area dedicated to coffee production and coffee production. The calculated alienation coefficient showed that the variation in the area dedicated to coffee production (decrease) explains the 36.8% of the behavior of productive values (decline).

Figure 2

Areas dedicated to coffee production in Cuba (1950–2017)

Source: Statistical records of the Coffee Directorate of the National Agroforestry Group of the Cuban Agriculture Ministry

The coffee yield in Cuba between 1950 and 2017 represented in Figure 3 shows a clear tendency to decrease, which is corroborated by the result of the Mann-Kendall test (Z = 9.637, S = −1822, p = 0.00).

Figure 3

The Cuban coffee yield between 1950 and 2017

Source: Statistical records of the Coffee Directorate of the National Agroforestry Group of the Cuban Agriculture Ministry

Similar to what was observed in the analysis of production values, the yield shows a regularity in terms of alternating high and low yields between years. The greatest fluctuations are in the period from 1952 to 1967, corresponding to the same behaviour of production.

The average yield in the evaluated period was 0.17 t_{green coffee} ha^–1, with a maximum of 0.36 t_{green coffee} ha^–1 in 1961 and a minimum of 0.08 t_{green coffee} ha^–1 in 2005, again with the differences between the years significant (t = 24.274, df = 67, p = 0.00). This trend likewise was statistically significant (Z = 5.4693, S = −1031, p = 0.00).

Discussion

The decline of coffee productivity in Cuba has been widely reported by different authors (Mata and Agüero 2011; Fajardo-Martínez and Fernández-Rosales 2012; Sánchez-Esmoris et al. 2012; Caro-Cayado 2014; Arañó-Leyva and Verdecia-García 2016; Navarro-Ocaña et al. 2016; Agüero-Contreras et al. 2017). However, these previous studies did not establish a quantitative relationship between the decline in productive values and the variables identified related to this process.

Agüero et al. (2018) reported that between 1960 and 1964, the continuous decline in coffee production and performance that began in Cuba was related to the conflict army’s Fight Against Bandits. This historical period had its greatest intensity in the mountains in the centre of the island, one of the most important coffee production centres, which caused a forced migration of the peasants who lived in geographical areas in military conflict. This factor caused the loss and neglect of the plantations, and the loss of cultural traditions of coffee.

In addition, migrations from the countryside to the cities increased from 1990 to 1999 as a consequence, fundamentally, of the economic limitations that characterised the economic crisis of the Special Period in Cuba. As a consequence, part of the accumulated agrarian culture was lost with the breakdown of the socialisation of both empirical and technical knowledge (Agüero-Contreras et al. 2017). Together with the continued ageing of the workforce, this led to inadequate care for, and in many cases to the abandonment of coffee areas. Added to this are the wrong measures taken to increase coffee productivity and decrease migration.

In the opinion of Agüero et al. (2018), the presence of the Youth Labor Army (EJT), as an emerging force for agricultural production, generated negative consequences in coffee production. This was due to the inexperience and instability of its staff due to its transitory nature in this activity and the resulting inadequate management of the plantations it worked.

Among other causes of low production yields in Cuba, the lack of application of key cultivation technologies has been pointed out, due to the lack of motivation of producers (Martínez 1991), the incidence of pests and diseases (Anzuelo 1995), the economic embargo of the United States and the measures to confront it (Hernández 2008; Nova 2006), and the migration from the countryside to the cities (Agüero-Contreras et al. 2017). Cienfuegos, a province located in the central part of the island and one of the most important coffee producers, particularly suffered from immigration coming from diverse geographical origins, which caused a contradiction between tradition and the new production patterns not associated with coffee.

In the 1960s, the Cuban government began to introduce technological advances in agriculture. Production, however, did not recover due to subjective factors in its implementation, such as frequent changes in plans, organisational problems, and reduced economic incentives (Mesa-Lago 1973). Additional strategies to increase production included massive mobilisations of people mainly for harvesting work (Agüero-Contreras et al. 2017), and the “La Escuela al Campo” programme – in which students participated in agricultural activities. This massiveness and the inadequate harvesting practices such as for example the so-called “milking of the branches with fruit” ³ as the technique to collect the fruits, resulted in low levels of yield due to mechanical damage to the buds, and more generally to depreciation of the plantations. The lack of timely renewal of the ageing coffee trees added to the decline (Sánchez-Esmoris et al. 2012; Vasallo 2019). The result of these is that only 23% of Cuba’s coffee production achieves yields of approximately 0.34 t_{green coffee} ha^–1 or higher. We can only hypothesise about the impact of these factors on the quality of the product because there are no records of the quality of the coffee harvests in Cuba.

The highest production values correspond to the period between 1954 and 1967. Prior to our study period, at the end of the 1920s, the Cuban government adopted a group of measures to increase coffee production on the island, and this achieved an increase in production and yields (Pérez de la Riva 1944). It is possible that the impact of these measures continued to positively influence these variables until they were abandoned starting in the 1970s. The production value ​​of 1961 (60,329.67 t_{green coffee} ) constitutes the historical record of coffee production in Cuba, which was the result of work carried out in coffee plantations for many years before, and the coincidence of a period of stability of the maximum quantities of productive areas.

In different coffee-producing countries there have also been crises in this productive sector (Perfecto et al. 2007), but their causes differ from those in Cuba. They were a result of the disintegration of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989, and the liberalisation of markets and the adoption of unfavourable measures for coffee production in Central American countries (Gilbert and Brunneti 1998; Bacon 2010). Global overproduction caused coffee prices to drop on the world market. An example of this was Ethiopia, notwithstanding that its coffee industry is generally characterised by low production levels and low quality (Alemayehu et al. 2008). During the period from 1990 to 2016, production increased from 2.9 million bags to 6.6, with exports increasing in parallel (ICO 2017). As a consequence of the low prices, in Latin America important tracts of land which had been dedicated to coffee cultivation have been abandoned, or their use has been changed (Vandermeer and Perfecto 2005).

Cuba was not significantly affected by these collapsed market prices, because the high quality of its exported coffee allowed it to establish a niche in the Asian market where it sold at higher prices (Ramajo-Destrades et al. 2013). This protected Cuban coffee production from the instability suffered by the product then, which suggests that the reasons for the decline in coffee production on the island are more due to internal factors.

Approximately 108,657 ha are devoted to Cuban coffee production. This value is below the area that Cuba had at the beginning of the period evaluated, 167,272.25 ha in 1950, and in 1969 when it had its largest amount of land ever dedicated to coffee growing on the island, 185,947.52 ha. This situation confirms that the decline in the area dedicated to coffee growing in Cuba continues, despite the measures adopted referred to by Díaz (2005).

In the 1990s, an evaluation of the areas dedicated to coffee production was carried out to consider their best agricultural use possible. As a result, several of these areas were classified for forestry purposes and the coffee plantations there were abandoned or cleared. This strategy was also conditioned by the insufficient workforce and the extensive areas of former production in a state of abandonment that could not be recovered. There are no official records that we could consult about this strategy, which lasted until the beginning of the 2000s. For this reason, it is not possible to quantify how many hectares were taken out of producing coffee for that reason. However, Figure 2 above shows a marked drop in the area dedicated to coffee production that coincides with this period of restructuring.

The strong positive correlation found between the area dedicated to coffee production and the level of production indicates that the decline in that area is an important factor in the decline in production. In addition, the high 36.8% variation in the productive area diminishes output. The foregoing and the other causes mentioned point to the fact that the decline in coffee production in Cuba has a multifactorial origin.

Acknowledgement

To the National Coffee and Cocoa Group of the Ministry of Agriculture of Cuba for having facilitated access to the information used in this work.

Notes

1.

The caballeria was a unit of land measurement in the Spanish viceroyalties in the Americas during the times of the Spanish Empire in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, equivalent to 78.58 hectares or 194.2 acres.

2.

An arroba is a unit of weight, liquid volume or occasionally dry volume, of different values in different countries and time periods, and according to the material. The long-standing weight value for colonial Cuba was 11.5 kilograms or 25 pounds.

3.

This expression refers to the practice of harvesting coffee in which all the cherries are detached from the branch, ripe or not, by pulling towards the end of the branch with the hand, similar to how one milks a cow.

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