African Fine Coffees Review Special Edition Oct-Dec - EAFCA

A Ripple in the Ocean
of Coffee Growing… A brief on the history of coffee in Malawi: from
inception to independence. (Part 1)
The Heart Warming Cup from the Warm Heart of Africa
There are conflicting reports about when coffee
was first introduced into Malawi, and dates vary
between 1876 and 1879, but according to a CABI
Report titled: “COFFEE PESTS, DISEASES AND THEIR
MANAGEMENT” “a single tree of var. typica” “was taken
from Edinburgh Botanic Gardens (UK) to Malawi (then
Nyasaland) in 1878.” There is general consensus that it
was introduced by Scottish Presbyterian missionaries
during this period into the Southern Region, specifically
around Zomba and Blantyre. The main objective of these
missionaries was to eradicate the slave trade prevalent
in the area at the time and that had been un-covered
by an earlier expedition by the famous explorer David
Livingstone in 1859.
In response to the influx of these missionaries into the
region, and a subsequent need to provide them services,
the African Lakes Company was formed in 1878, by a
group of traders who predominantly hailed from Glasgow.
At the time Malawi was as yet un-named, and after “a
consul of the British Government was accredited to the
‘Kings and Chiefs of Central Africa’ in 1883”, Malawi
was then established as the ‘British Central African
Protectorate’ in 1891 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History of
Malawi/3.6&4). During this time, coffee production was
taken up and grown by the first European planters in
and around Mlanje (now Mulanje), Cholo (now Thyolo)
and Zomba, and soon became established as the primary
export crop.
Coffee exports from the late 1890s to the early 1900s
were said to range from “300,000 to more than 2,000,000
pounds”, just over 907 thousand kilograms, and by 1900
the country was recorded as having 16,917 acres of
producing coffee (Chisolm, Hugh ed. 1911).
Interestingly, this is also the year that Nyasaland,
introduced coffee to Uganda, through the export of ‘Nyasa’
seed.
The country, which changed in name in 1907 to
‘Nyasaland’ or the ‘Nyasaland Protectorate’, continued
to produce coffee predominantly by planters in the
south of the country (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History
of Malawi/5). But even at this early stage there was an
evident reduction in the cultivated area of coffee, which
had declined to 6134 acres in the same year. This decrease
was confirmed in the “Annual Report for Nyasaland 1908-
1909”, which stated that coffee “now occupies the second
place in point of acreage and value of export; before the
introduction of cotton it was the principal crop
of the Protectorate”. The report went on to
make particular mention of the difficulties with
un-predictable rainfall and the resultant erratic
outcome of the crop, in terms of yield (Annual
No. 619, 1909).
By 1910 coffee was seen as “a very speculative
crop” by the administration (Annual No. 655,
1910) and the view at the time was such that
coffee was to be slowly replaced by cotton
and tobacco. To illustrate the decline, figures
for 1909-1910 indicate that only 3,957 acres
of land remained with productive coffee, and
export figures for 1910 were down 187,000lbs to
748,410lbs. (Annual No.655, 1910).
To corroborate this, in 1911 it was reported that
“Africa, the origin of coffee, did not make any
significant contribution to world production.”
(WH Ukers, 1922). The report went onto state
that this was mainly as a result of low prices
offered for the produce on the world markets
and better remuneration on other locally grown
crops, such as cotton tobacco and tea.
With a shift in focus to cotton production
throughout the country, especially from 1916 to
1918 where “Nyasaland” exported up to as much
as 3.4 million pounds of cotton, emphasis on
coffee growing was declining. In fact by 1917 the
cultivated area of coffee had reduced drastically
to 1,300 hectares with the resultant export
production having fallen to 122,796lbs (Annual
No.955, 1917).
The cotton run was not to last long, and with a
number of mitigating factors, the main crop in
Nyasaland shifted towards what is in modern
days seen as its’ “green gold”; tobacco. There
were several reasons for this major shift,
amongst others, a) during export of the 1917-
1918 crop the exports were heavily limited due
to shipping restrictions; b) growers at the time
refused to invest in new more effective seed; c)
in 1917 changes were made to fumigate tobacco
prior to shipment – which enabled tobacco
to fetch higher prices from buyers and finally
d) tobacco as a crop was more profitable than
cotton (Annual No. 996, 1919).
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