The Unexplored Socio-Cultural Benefits of Coffee Plants: Implications for the Sustainable Management of Ethiopia’s Coffee Forests

Abstract

Coffee is among the most popular commodity crops around the globe and supports the livelihoods of millions of households along its value chain. Historically, the broader understanding of the roles of coffee has been limited to its commercial value, which largely is derived from coffee, the drink. This study, using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, explores some of the unrevealed socio-cultural services of coffee of which many people are not aware. The study was conducted in Gomma district, Jimma Zone, Oromia National Regional state, Ethiopia, where arabica coffee was first discovered in its natural habitat. Relying on a case study approach, our study uses ethnographic study methods whereby results are presented from the communities’ perspectives and the subsequent discussions with the communities on how the community perspectives could help to better manage coffee ecosystems. Coffee’s utilities and symbolic functions are numerous—food and drink, commodity crop, religious object, communication medium, heritage and inheritance. Most of the socio-cultural services are not widely known, and hence are not part of the benefits accounting of coffee systems. Understanding and including such socio-cultural benefits into the wider benefits of coffee systems could help in promoting improved management of the Ethiopian coffee forests that are the natural gene pools of this highly valuable crop.

Innovation for development of sustainable integrated plantation polyculture on dry land: Using Structural Equation Modelling

“…The institutional dimension of the socio-cultural capital that has good performance is a very large variable to reflect the sustainable IPPF (λ = 0.96). The performance of the socio-cultural capital on the institutional dimension shows good performance as reflected in the active participation of the farmer groups and Combined Farmers Group to seek information which is then conveyed to the farmers (Włodarczyk-Marciniak et al 2020;Bulitta and Duguma 2021). In addition, farmer groups and the gapoktans have provided marketing facilities and collaborated with other parties to facilitate the capacity and ability of the farmers.…”

Lessons from Ethiopian coffee landscapes for global conservation in a post-wild world

“…In addition to alternative landscape trajectories being associated with different benefits and disbenefits in different parts of the landscape, these may also be borne by different stakeholders—plantation-grown export coffee, for example, benefits companies and remote consumers (arguably more so than local labourers), while locally traded forest coffee generates a mixture of modest economic benefits and cultural benefits for local people 104 . To successfully conserve coffee and its genetic diversity, as well as the high levels of biodiversity associated with these forests, it is central to understand how diverse actors together shape the governance and use of forests (Fig.…”

Everyday adaptation practices by coffee farmers in three mountain regions in Africa

“…It is important to highlight that in Mount Kenya and Kigezi Highlands several farmers interviewed mentioned that they had cultivated coffee in the past but had stopped doing so due to low yields and/or low or fluctuating coffee prices. It is possible that, in the Bale Mountains, coffee abandonment was not mentioned because of the strong cultural attachment and symbolic value of this plant in Ethiopia (Bulitta and Duguma 2021). Respondents in both Mount Kenya and Kagezi Highlands highlighted that, even if it has no religious value, coffee farming was of cultural importance for them, with comments such as, "a nice coffee farm is related to wealth, prestige, and access to credit, and it is an asset to pass to your children" (study participant, Kigezi Highlands).…”

“…In Kenya, there are about 700,000 coffee farmers, 99% of whom own less than five ha (Karuri 2020). Notably, beyond being a commodity crop, for some farmer communities coffee is a religious object, a communication medium, a heritage, and an inheritance (e.g., in the Jimma Zone of Ethiopia; Bulitta and Duguma 2021). For such farmer communities, coffee symbolically represents much of what is prized in life: procreation, human relationships, peace, wealth, prestige, access to credit, having an asset to pass to descendants, and a healthy, shaded, well-watered environment, among others (Bulitta and Duguma 2021).…”