Devouring profit - International Coffee Organization

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Analysing Figure 20, we see that income can vary substantially among these three
types of production. For instance, in January the gross income per hectare is about
US$580 for the highest technology but it is barely above US$100 in the subsistence
group. It is clear that at least during May, June, July and August there is no income
derived from coffee which could adversely affect any investment in crops or any other
enterprise during that period. Also, pest management may be limited due to lack of
money just at a phase of the crop cycle when it is most needed. The subsistence
group seems to be very vulnerable during this period.
Pests and diseases, - farmers’ perceptions: the Mexican Coffee Council (2000)
carried out a survey among coffee producers. One of the topics analysed was pest and
disease management. Table 36 describes the main control strategies used and the
percentage of farmers involved in each of them.
Table 36. Main control strategy used against pests &
diseases.
Table 36 shows that the two main strategies used against pest and diseases are cultural
control and no control. This circumstance could have several explanations. Firstly, coffee
farmers might lack information about pest and disease management. Secondly, the
control measures proposed might not work properly so they have not adopted them,
or conversely that they see no economic advantage in using them, or that they have
insufficient resources to carry out the control measures (Norton & Mumford, 1993).
More research is needed to understand what is happening here but it may be related
to the almost total absence of extension support.
Research carried out in Chiapas by Jiménez (1999) found that coffee farmers considered
that the most important phytosanitary problems were coffee leaf rust (Hemileia
vastatrix) for 87% of farmers and CBB (Hypothenemus hampei) for 92% of them. Thus
the CFC-ICO/02 project focused on a key sanitary problem for Mexican coffee farmers.
Colombian coffee growers
Socio-economic description: the following comes from the study carried out by Duque
et al., (2000) on technology adoption of IPM strategy by Colombian coffee farmers,
13% of whom were women whilst 87% were men. The majority were owner farmers
(66%) most of the rest were managers (29%).