Coffee in Colombia, 1850-1970

Palacios, a Colombian historian, wrote an economic and social history of coffee in Colombia from the mid-nineteenth century to 1970. The reference has not verified the book's detailed contents.

The subject matters because Colombian coffee developed differently from other Latin American export economies. In much of the region, export agriculture concentrated land in large estates worked by dependent labour. In Colombia, coffee production came substantially from smallholders, particularly in Antioquia and Caldas, working plots they owned. The reasons for this and its consequences are the analytical questions.

The consequences examined in the literature include the effect on income distribution, which was less concentrated than in comparable export economies; the political effect, since a large class of smallholding producers has different interests and different political capacity from a landed oligarchy; the role of the National Federation of Coffee Growers, established in 1927, which represented producers, managed quality and marketing, operated a price stabilisation fund and became one of the most powerful institutions in the country; and the effect of international coffee price volatility on the Colombian economy and on public finances, given the export concentration.

Palacios also examines the relationship between coffee and the periods of political violence, including La Violencia after 1948, and the regional structure of Colombian politics.

The book is academic history and the standard reference on its subject. The international coffee agreements that governed the market when it was written collapsed in 1989, which changed the industry's structure substantially.