History of Coffee Production in Chiapas (1880-2010). Notes on a Social and Environmental Evolution

Abstract

In this text, the factors that in little more than a century fostered and led coffee growing in Chiapas, Mexico, are analyzed. As the coffee plantations spread to the interior of the state and based on the factors that made this possible, there is a periodization of the development of coffee growing. It is shown that coffee production is a process of socio-environmental evolution, evidenced by the transformation of large farms, from foreign to national owners, to more than a hundred social enterprises or cooperatives, mainly indigenous owners who produce coffee in complex agroforestry systems and on a family scale, articulated and organized at different levels. This shows a change in the way of conceiving coffee production. If at the beginning it was directed towards economic profitability promoted through specialization, technological dependence, and the export of the product, thus leaving a deep mark on the landscape, entered the 21st century, the productive rationality began to take the course towards sustainability. This is partly due to a combination of the market, productive diversification, non-dependence on external inputs, and small-scale production. It is a change related to traditional wisdom and against the current dominant globalization. Finally, it represents a phenomenon of social and environmental evolution derived from a historical biocultural resistance.