The Impact of Forced Coffee Cultivation on Java, 1805-1917
Author(s)
Clarence-Smith, W. G.
Abstract
Chronicles the cultivation system on Colonial Java and examines the possibility that a free enterprise system could have lowered coffee production costs, raised Javanese incomes, and averted environmental destruction. Governmental coercion proved an ineffective tool in gaining a positive response from natives who developed a diversionary, illegal free market system. Dutch official policy demanding larger coffee production levels also mandated the destruction of forests that hastened irreparable soil erosion and ultimately reduced crop yields. Although the cultivation system forced Java to increase its coffee production, evidence suggests that a more liberal system would have improved the country’s social and political infrastructures and resulted in a more profitable and ecologically acceptable farming system.
