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Spanish missionaries who had settled at the delta of the Caroni River planted the first coffee tree in Venezuela in 1730. They had brought it from Brazil where it had originally been brought from Surinam or Cayene. Martinique and Guadalupe also received it from Brazil.
| The first coffee party at Caracas |
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Coffee trees passed from Guayana to the Region of Caracas close to 1740. In Chacao, near the town of Caracas, the first coffee plantations were organized in 1784 at the Blandín Farm, due to the efforts of Bartolomé Blandín, or Blandain as it seems to be spelled correctly. Later this experience was repeated by Sofo and Mohedano, two priests, at the farms of San Felipe Neri and La Floresta.
| Farming expansion |
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Starting in 1784, farming coffee extended to San Antonio, Las Minas and the Aragua Valleys, later passing to the Carabobo and Barcelona Provinces. In 1776, growths were found in Cumaná and Rio Caribe. In 1780, growths extended to the West, and were spread into lands of the Andes Mountains: in Mérida where, in spite of early introduction of the plants, probably before 1777, plantations were founded after the War of Independence. In Táchira, due to the initiative of Gervasio Rubio it was introduced in 1794 to the La Yagüera Farm which was close to a town that later, in 1855, would be called Rubio. In Trujillo it was probably introduced by Francisco de Labastida in 1801, and following through the Andes of the State of Táchira, the coffee trees continued their expansion into Colombia, penetrating through Cúcuta and Salvador de las Palmas. Towards 1809, according to José Domingo Ruis in his geographic description of the Maracaibo Province, there were abundant coffee trees in Mérida, and Táchira, because in Trujillo there was some coffee already.
Little by little, coffee displaced cocoa as the main exportation item of the Venezuelan economy. Cocoa, that had reigned almost alone in the national economical scene between the second half of the XVIIth century and the first half of the XVIIIth century, declined visibly in its preeminence, starting in XIX. Towards 1830, the substitution of cocoa by coffee was a fact expressed by a double displacement: that of cocoa which was transferred from the Central part of the country to the West and particularly, to the Eastern part of the country, turning Carúpano into the main port for cocoa exportation in Venezuela and one of the most important commercial sites of the country, and of coffee from the Center to the Andes, giving value to the mountain slopes, making the Andean lands economically and politically dynamic, particularly the State of Táchira, and giving a tremendous impulse to the port of Maracaibo that acted as the natural exit of the coffee exports of the Andean region and of the Colombian Department of Norte de Santander.
The expansion of coffee growing in Venezuela is inscribed within a scenario of great changes in production and consumption. Since the beginning of the XIXth century, world consumption of coffee had been incremented rapidly, especially in the United States, which at the beginning of the century, imported 100,000 sacks yearly, less than 10% of world consumption, rising to 30% between 1855-1859, and 40% between 1880-1890. Notable consumption growths were also observed in Germany and France.
The development of the Andean agriculture had a tremendous economical and political repercussion on the country. It put certain production lands in the mountainous zone of the North West to use that, until then, were not exploited. This strengthened the small Andean agricultural properties, activating a depressed region, stimulating the flow of importers from Colombia, incorporating Táchira to the Venezuelan political scenario, and strengthening the Andean urban network that brought about changes in life styles.
Likewise, the Region of the State of Zulia was also invigorated, especially Maracaibo. Towards 1841, around 60 German businessmen lived in Maracaibo, some of them were involved in wood exploitation business and others, in the exportation of coffee. They were almost pioneers, together with other foreign businessmen such as the Italians, Riboli and Abbo. Towards 1870, the German companies of Minlos, Breuer (later, in 1896, Breuer, Möller and Co.), Steinvorth, Van Dissel Thies (later Van Dissel Rode), Blohm, Schmilinski, Feuner, etc., controlled the exportation of coffee from Maracaibo, spreading its commercial influence throughout the State of Táchira, other Andean states and even Cucuta and Bucaramanga. From their head offices in Maracaibo, they established agencies at San Cristóbal, Rubio, Valera, Sabana de Mendoza, Motatán, etc. But they were not only exporters. They were also importers and moneylenders, and they provided storage, transportation, insurance, consignees, etc. At the end of the XIX century, according to Herwig, foreign business from Maracaibo was controlled by five commercial businesses: Blohm, Breuer, Van Dissel, H. Bornhorst and Schon-Willson.
| The Rise of the Coffee Economy |
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Planting had completed its travelling cycle. Up to the XIXth century, it had moved from Guayana to the Central Region, where it settled mainly in the Valleys of Caracas and Aragua, and then, in the XIX century, it moved towards the Central-Western region. Towards 1880, having penetrated the Andean mountainous slopes a few decades before, coffee became the most important growth product of that region, and the three Andean states became the leaders of national coffee production.
World coffee prices remained low during the decades between 1820 and 1840, but later, they recovered until reaching their highest level, between cyclic movements of ups and downs, towards the mid 1890s. In that period, many production zones where cultivation had been established on a certain scale before 1850, as occurred in Venezuela, Haiti and Costa Rica, were favored and growing was started in other areas such as Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador and Colombia. In that context, the culture of growing coffee in the Venezuelan Andean Region developed.
By 1924, the State of Táchira became the first national producer with 28.73% of the national total, followed by Lara (13.04% and Mérida (12.28%). The State of Trujillo, also in the Andean region, produced a modest 0.26%, but by 1837, it contributed with 13.86% of national coffee production. Cultivation had found its most favorable land in the Andes, but it also had problems.
| The Coffee Growing Decline |
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In 1919, a climax was reached in coffee exportation when it surpassed 82,000 tons. From that date onwards, the coffee growth suffered production rises and falls due to the two World Wars, the discovery of oil, the Great Depression, over-production in Brazil and the wrong agricultural official policies of Venezuela.
Until World War I (1914-1918), the economical structure inherited from the XIXth century was sustained with predominance in a system of mono-cultivation and agricultural exports lead by coffee. But basically the situation had changed: international coffee prices had been falling since 1898 as a result of Brazilian surplus production, thus eliminating competition for the Venezuelan production in international markets. Coffee, which represented 83% of total Venezuelan exportations in 1897-1898, was responsible in 1908-1909 for only 38%4 of these. Then, the country faced serious Treasury problems and attempted to resolve its deficit with new and higher taxes that decreased the competitiveness of Venezuelan coffee. From then on, erroneous governmental policies were imposed that left coffee growth to its luck, unprotected because governments did not manage to concrete and apply protective policies that would minimize the effects of international price fluctuations, creating protection stocks or establishing a fair subsidy policy on coffee growing. However, that was another scenario. Now, oil was predominant and superseded traditional exportation items (coffee, cocoa, leather, gold, etc.) as a generating force of currency. The coffee activity was not the outstanding point of the Venezuelan economy, nor did it have any government support.
Then came the United States crisis and the Great Depression that lasted until 1938. Agricultural activities lost value as a source for generating gross territorial product, and the territorial agricultural concentration was accelerated. Agricultural exporting economy, led by coffee, was gradually being liquidated. The Bolivar, at that time, was a strong currency with respect to other currencies, a fact that was not convenient for an agricultural exporting economy such as the Venezuelan one. During the decade of 1920, the average bidding of the Bolivar had been 5.37 units per dollar. By 1930, it was 5.44; in 1913 it was 6.75. In August, 1932, it reached 7.75 units.
On October 22, 1933 and as part of its New Deal, the United States, trying to recover from the crisis that affected its economy, devaluated the Dollar by 34%. Many countries that produced and exported primary goods and whose economies were linked to the United States, followed the dollar in its devaluation. Venezuela did not devaluate its currency which, in practice, meant appraising it.
By the end of 1933, after the dollar’s devaluation, the Bolivar parity was 3.94 units per dollar. Starting on January, 1934, parity was located at 3.06 Bs./Dollar, intentionally over-evaluating our agricultural products for exportation, a fact that the crisis of the agricultural exporting economy, reducing exporters’ income, its financing and its capacity to accumulate.
In February 1936, a system of premiums was applied to the exportation of agricultural products. But it was useless because the decline of coffee as an important exportation item was already evident, weakened by low international prices and an over-evaluated currency, until in 1937 a fortunate event occurred for the sector in a first stage of its long history.
The Tinoco Agreement functioned until the end of April, 1937, when the government decided to fully evaluate the Bolívar at a rate of exchange of 3.09 Bs/US dollar, clearing the way to definitely create an open economy for imports, closed for non petroleum exportations. Thus, the petroleum economy was installed in the country’s economical structure, at the rate on which, simultaneously, income derived from the petroleum activities soared.
| The Present Status of National Coffee Growing |
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Until 1895, Venezuela held the third place among the largest world coffee producers, after Brazil and the Dutch Indies. At that time, the country produced between 6.5 and 6.7 per cent of world production, and between 14 and 16 per cent of world total in soft coffees. The following year, 1896, Venezuela was the second world producer and the first among the large world producers of soft coffee. Afterwards it started falling and in 1920, it fell to third place, in 1925 to fourth place, in 1931 to fifth, in 1932 to sixth and in 1933 to eighth. In 1979, and continuing through 1979-1984, Venezuela did not fulfill the exportation quota that the International Coffee Organization (ICO) had assigned it. Scarce available statistics, many of them not comparable between them, clearly evidenced the state of prostration of the national coffee economy.
In 1972, there were 58,940 coffee farms in the country, with a planted surface of 245,442 ha. 90.8% of this surface was planted with the Typica variety, with low returns, a reduced density of plants exhausted due to their long age. Then, only 5.1% of the farms used fertilizers; 9.1% used insecticides, 2.8% fungicides and 2.0% herbicides. Besides, 40.5% of exploitations used the procedure of dry benefits, and 44.5% of its farms, due to their reduced extension, did not benefit directly from their coffee.
Over a decade later, according to the results of the II Coffee Census, which was effected between 1984 and 1985, the situation was practically the same. The number of coffee farms was the same: 58,949, and production surface scarcely reached 270,000 ha. 72% of the productive surface was planted with the Typica variety with low productivity, and average returns did not reach the 6 quintals (100 lbs.) per hectare. Improved varieties (mainly Caturra, Bourbon and Catuai) only covered 28% of the planted surface and the technology used was of few investments: 61% of the exploitations did not apply fertilizers, 95% did not used technified trimming, 80% did not apply sanitary controls. Besides, 45% of the plantations were over 20 years old and 29% were outside the recommended altitude limits. 67% of producers were over 40 years old, 50% were illiterate and 70% were disorganized. 75% of them did not receive technical support.
The III National Coffee Census ratified the sector’s state of prostration. In 1989/1990, there were 42,686 farms (lower than the 60,239 in 1950, and 54,233 in 1984/1985), and cultivated surface was 206,325 has., lower than the 330,032 in 1950 and 288,310 in 1984/1985. Likewise, 39% of the producers did not fertilize, 68% did not receive official credits, 41% did not receive technical assistance and 61% was not applied to economical coffee organizations. Besides, over half of the cultivated coffee surface had plantations over sixteen years old.
As a consequence of so many adverse factors, national coffee production has been stationed or with decreasing tendencies. Availability for human consumption per capita has likewise decreased during this period, from 2.3 kilos/person/year in 1986 to 1.7 in 1994.
The reasons for this stagnation of the sector are directly related to the abandoned state that the government has shown towards this activity. The National Coffee Fund (Foncafe), created in 1975 due to the division of the National Coffee and Cocoa Fund into two independent organizations, had abandoned its original functions and had become a bureaucratic organization with contradictory and inefficient policies that many people considered it as being a source of enrichment for management in turn. On the other hand, structural economic adjustments sensibly reduced official attention, with the suspension of credits and technical assistance and the elimination of subsidies for fertilizers.
The liberation of coffee merchandizing since 1990, which had been previously monopolized by Foncafé, and the devaluation of the Bolivar with regards to the dollar, opened new perspectives to national coffee growth.
However, certain problems still persist, such as the low productivity of growths, deficient prevailing economical conditions in production zones, the lack of technical and financial support, the growth of “broca” (a parasite that grows on the plants) and the serious situation of communication routes, among other factors, that affect the situation by making problems more serious.
Foncafé, in an effort to recover its institutional image and that of the country as a coffee producer and exporter, proposed a five.-year program in 1997 that pursues the renovation in 14 states of 15,000 has. of coffee, and the recovery of another 10,000 has. with variations in high benefits, but the financing of this program has still not been adequately completed. The increase in international coffee prices since 1994, when it rose from 0.62 US$/lb. to 1.23, has stimulated hopes for the rebirth of this sector that has a great social, economical and environmental importance due to the high number of families that depend on it, and its relevant contribution to the conservation of the environment in production zones. 91% of the coffee plantations of the country are located in 39 hydrographic basins and 76 sub-basins in 13 states, where they fulfill a relevant role as an environmental growth that, planted under shade, recovers the biomass and improves soils by its loss of leaves.
If the program for the renovation of coffee plantations succeeds against the “broca” and technical and financial support is not granted at short notice, the capacity to satisfy internal coffee demands of some 900,000 quintals per year will be seriously endangered, and the possibilities to enter international markets will be lost.
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"La Floresta"
coffee farm, 1892
Group of mules
wading a river with
coffee sacks on their backs
View of the port of Maracaibo,
Customs House and riverboat
of the Lake Fleet,ca
around 1920.
Photograph by Pedro J. Villasmil.
Invoices issued
for internal transactions
between farms and other
coffee establishments
Venezuelan coffee
publicity poster,
1939.
Stamp from the U.S.
of Venezuela,
Years 1938-42.
Series issued on the occasion
of the subsidy to
coffee and cocoa production
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