8 ms·
Why Are Haiti's Coffee Trees So Tall?
- icebraining 10y agoThe Revolutions podcast has dedicated 19 episodes (around 10 hours) this year on the Haitian revolution, particularly the French occupied half, in which the coffee plantations feature prominently. Of particular interest is the fact that in 1825 Haiti was forced to pay reparations to French ex-slaveholders, in the order of $40B in 2010 dollars, which they only managed to finalize in 1947. http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/2015/12/index.html http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/2015/12/index.html
- heyzeusalmighty 10y agoThis is the particular podcast[0] that quickly goes through post-revolution Haiti. Highly recommended podcast and the Haitian revolution was in particular really interesting. The author is currently in the middle of the Simon Bolivar's revolution in Venezuela. [0] - http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/2016/04/419-the-history-of-haiti.html http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/2016/04/419-the-history-of...
- icebraining 10y agoThe author is currently in the middle of the Simon Bolivar's revolution in Venezuela. And which, I'd like to add, was helped by post-revolution Haiti, who helped Bolivar with ships, weapons and volunteers, in exchange for pushing for the abolishment of slavery.
- mturmon 10y agoThe slave revolt in Haiti put great fear into the incumbent governments of the time (France and U.S. included), and that fear drove economic revenge and isolation for many decades after the revolt -- even centuries, as you point out. It's always worth remembering when reading an article pointing out the problems of Haiti, as if that island just happens to be one of the poorest places in the Western hemisphere, e.g. due to bad government in the Duvalier years.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- obrero 10y agoThe USA backed a military coup that ousted the Haitian government in 1991. The US again backed a military coup that ousted the same president, Aristide, in 2004. The president in the 2004 coup was transferred from the US to Haiti to lead the country. The US won't let Haiti run itself. So what do Americans do? Complain about how Haitians are taking advantage of their infinite amount of charity. Please.
- jbob2000 10y agoTLDR; Haiti is pretty bad for growing coffee, for a number of reasons spanning politics to poor farming practices. So the coffee trees tend to be really tall because if they actually manage to grow one which produces beans, they are hesitant to cut it down.
- Retric 10y agoHaiti has social, economic, and political issues with growing coffee. The core issue is most coffee trees are not on farms, even if it's useful for them to clam to be farms. PS: Haiti has over 800 people per square mile, that's on par with Massachusetts which does not do a lot of farming (0.1% GDP).
- xufi 10y agoThis reminds me of Colombia albeit the situation is better due to the peace agreement they reached with the rebel group/they are a hilly country but they are also plagued by massive corruption yet one of their biggest exporter is coffee. Interesting to compare the 2 places
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- M_Grey 10y agoIt's odd, the article has this to say early on, "In Haiti, you can often make as much or more through temporary aid funding than you can from productive endeavors. Which means that, even as the market for unique coffee with an interesting backstory booms, cultivating it in the country has become as much about chasing charity as it is about trying to run a viable enterprise that produces excellent coffee year after year." Then it spends the better part of a page and a half detailing all of the issues of political instability and so on which actually are the major factors and have nothing to do with "chasing charity".
- legulere 10y agoWell the site this is on is after all "reason.com - free minds and free markets".
- M_Grey 10y agoI see, so it's just the required ideological plug, got it.
- jeromegv 10y agoIt's the Koch brothers afterall
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- JBReefer 10y agoPlease don't be dismissive on HN
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- M_Grey 10y agoI'm not sure, I asked a question which turns out was in fact answered with some form of, "Because it's pushing an agenda". All he did was inform me of the nature of that agenda, while another poster informed me of the source. Sometimes context does matter.
- h4nkoslo 10y agoThree word answer: high time preference.
- Zenst 10y agoArticle lacks images and indeed a quick look on the net yielded nothing noteworthy to back this up and all I saw were the usual bush sized ones. So somewhat curious if this the norm or just a few exceptions that got picked upon. Also they say coffee but there are many types of coffee plant/bush/tree, so no idea what variation of plant. Also note a bush is just a small tree too many.
- nkrisc 10y agoThe most salient thing I learned from this article is there are lots of old jokes in Haiti.
- douche 10y agoIt's quite a contrast between the two halves of that island. If you like Jared Diamond, he wrote an interesting essay on the subject[1] [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=iIeTZ6SfOnkC&lpg=PA128&ots=dlJN0yUf2h&dq=trujillo%20vs%20duvalier&pg=PA120#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=iIeTZ6SfOnkC&lpg=PA128&ots...
- x2398dh1 10y agoI have spent about 9 months cumulative in the coffee-producing region of Nicaragua, known as Jinotega, and have been fortunate enough to spend some time with small coffee producing farmers (fincas), and have followed the entire production process that they have in-country from drying the beans to roasting and packing. I have also spoken to various coffee importers here in America, in my local metro area, about how they purchase, both fair-trade and not. I have also spent about a year cumulatively in Haiti, and worked for a Haitian manufacturing company. I hiked from sea level to the highest point in Haiti, and saw a lot of rural areas in the middle portion of the country, but I didn't see much coffee growing in Haiti personally, although I did drink a lot of Rebo brand Haitian Coffee. I would agree that the technical level of coffee production in Nicaragua is likely higher, and that they do at least appear to have a larger export market. I have heard stories about how it's challenging to export agricultural goods from Haiti to the US, in general. Technically it's an ITAR restricted country, which is not a good starting point at all, for any kind of exporting. Beyond that, while both Nicaragua and Haiti have had massive amounts of political instability, it's just more expensive to import all sorts equipment to Haiti, because it's an island. You can get all sorts of coffee grinders and roasters in Nicaragua by driving it down from Mexico or wherever, but in Haiti it would have to be brought in by boat or from the Dominican Republic. This creates an expertise/knowledge bottleneck. Multiply this expertise/knowledge bottleneck out over every industry, and every piece of equipment. Also the geography and infrastructure doesn't help. Nicaragua has a huge highway leading from the coffee producing region, so it's an hour drive from Managua. Back in 2004 it took more like 4-6 hours to drive there from Managua. In Haiti...you have nothing of the sort...it's just crappy roads, pretty much everywhere. Multiply that cost over the cost of importing vehicles, parts, the lack of mechanical expertise, etc...everything is just more expensive. So it's also a distribution problem. That's basically how I see Haiti in a nutshell, compared to Nicaragua, not just in the coffee realm. The comment about, "things being done for charity rather than business," is both true and not true...it's an over-generalisation. There are a lot of people making money and producing things in Haiti as well. I don't have an official breakdown of charity dollars vs. non-charity dollars.