The Dynamics and Implications of the Coffee Economy in Tubah Sub-Division, 1934-2005

Abstract

That the coffee economy in Tubah is at a development cul-de-sac and requires an overhaul is unquestionable. The article introduces the sustainable coffee challenge and the circumstances that made the sector unsustainable and suffered a decline in Tubah. It has been argued that coffee economy in Tubah was introduced as a substitute to the legitimate trade and owed its unsustainability and eventual decline to the outbreak of the economic crisis in the 1980s. Such argument is often pegged to the grievances of the poor angry farmers who were victims of the economic crisis and appear to have written off the benefits of the coffee sector on their livelihoods in the past. Contrary to such orthodox, this paper argues that the natural environment of Tubah alongside colonial influence provided the potential for the emergence of the coffee economy. It is further illustrated that coffee cultivation and commercialization mechanisms in Tubah evolved with time and circumstances. The lack of farm subsidies and the fall in the price of the commodity in the world market left the farmers in a state of dilemma. The paper also exposes the view that the coffee economy, in spite its constraints, resulted in beneficial socio-economic mutations in Tubah. A plethora of problems especially the economic crisis and the incessant exploitation of farmers by buying agents contributed in placing the coffee economy on a bad course. Using the case of the world’s coffee industry, the paper argues that coffee which was at the centre of Tubah economy had unprecedented implications on the wellbeing of the people prior to its gradual unsustainability and decline in the late 1990s. The reactivation of this sector, the paper suggests, requires short and long term measures that go beyond State action alone.

Keywords: Dynamics, implications, economy, economic crisis, colonialism, Tubah