i Patrick W. Staib Anthropology This dissertation is approved, and it ...

eing considered as a potential route for an isthmus canal. This was the first episode of
North American political intervention in Nicaragua’s national affairs.
Coffee and the Nicaraguan Countryside
Industrialized coffee agriculture changed the social order of post-independence
Nicaragua. Beginning with the introduction of coffee to Nicaragua in 1845, the industry
expanded from the Carazo plateau to the highlands of Matagalpa, Jinotega, and Las
Segovias. In this section I detail the socioeconomic factors that led to the rise of coffee as
a national industry.
Historically, coffee production is based on extraction of primary resources with
little concern for local ecosystems and wildlife habitat. It is a highly extractive activity in
that depends on foreign capital and high unemployment rates in order to access large
amounts of seasonal labor. One reason Kona coffee from Hawaii is so expensive is
because workers are paid standard U.S. minimum wage to perform the same tasks that
Nicaraguan campesinos do for a fraction of the cost. In the mid 1800s, the Nicaraguan
government determined that coffee production could operate as a civilizing force and an
organizational mechanism for making vast expanses of native lands productive for the
rising export economy (Téllez 2000).
David Robleto Lang is a third-generation coffee farmer from Matagalpa. He has
served as the president of the Unión Nicaragüense de Cafetaleros (UNICAFE – The
Nicaraguan Coffee Farmers’ Union) and on the board of directors of El Consejo Supremo
de la Empresa Privada (COSEP – The Supreme Council for Private Enterprise) as well
as other industry organizations. His 2000 book, El café en Nicaragua: un desafio para el
futuro (Coffee in Nicaragua: A Challenge for the Future), relates his experiences as an
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