From Coffee Estates to the Coffee State: A Global History of the Colombian Coffee Economy in the Twentieth Century

For much of the 20th century, Colombia was synonymous with superior quality coffee. From Coffee Estates to the Coffee State: A Global History of the Colombian Coffee Economy in the Twentieth Century places Colombian coffee in a global context and shows that this differentiation of Colombian coffee was the result of a complex history of corporate strategy, political economy, and foreign policy.

Professor Bucheli will analyze the strong influence wielded over the Colombian economic and political system by a private entity: the FNCC (Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia). Based on privileged access to previously unexplored FNCC archives, this book will show how the firm strategically molded the Colombian economy and state to its interests, then cleverly influenced coffee prices and American policy towards Latin America from the Global Depression of the 1930s through the end of the Cold War in the 1980s. The influence of the FNCC in Colombian economic and foreign policy decreased after 1989, when with the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States lost interest in subsidizing coffee exports, new industries such as oil and coal (as well as the illegal cocaine exports) emerged in Colombia and competed with the FNCC for political influence, and a new technocratic elite adopted free market policies that meant decreasing subsidies to coffee exports.