Jamaican Coffee Research Articles

Habitat selection by an avian predator of insect pests on Jamaican coffee farms

Habitat selection by an avian predator of insect pests on Jamaican coffee farms

Plantation Coffee in Jamaica 1790–1848

Plantation Coffee in Jamaica 1790–1848

Genres of History and the Practice of Loss

This book discussion essay addresses critical questions concerning historical methodologies when working with the archives of Atlantic-world slavery. Thinking with Hazel V. Carby’s Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands, the essay considers the power of historical memoir to narrate the violence of the British empire through family stories. The long-intertwined histories of England and the Caribbean inevitably lead to slavery’s archives, and in the final section of the book, Carby describes the lives of her earliest ancestors on a Jamaican coffee plantation. In response, the essay author revisits her hesitations regarding slavery’s archive and the stakes of approaching the silences of enslaved people in the records. Drawing on pivotal work in black feminist studies, this essay rearticulates the nuances of Saidiya Hartman’s “critical fabulation” to bring attention back to archival boundaries and the limits of historical methodologies that make certain imaginings most difficult.

Modeling Profitability in the Jamaican Coffee Industry

It is well known that producers of agricultural products do not able to capture most of the value from what they grow. As such, it is important for producers to be attuned to the various factors that impact the viability of their products. One such potential avenue for coffee producers is developing a strong awareness of profitability across their respective geographic regions. This research presents a fine-scale geospatial profitability model for coffee production using the test case of the Jamaican Coffee Industry, a sector which once guaranteed profitability but now presents variable (often losing) returns for many producers, this research presents a cost-surface model for coffee production in the island of Jamaica. Results indicated large scale profitability in the 2016–2017 coffee year but limited profitability in the 2019–2019 coffee year, highlighting the important role of revenue fluctuation in island-wide profitability. Results underscore importance of scenario planning in the coffee production cycle. By understanding the spatial properties of profitability producers will obtain better decision-making insight for production and management decisions in the coffee industry around the world. The geospatial profitability model establishes a baseline approach that can be accessed by industry stakeholders of varying technological capacities.

Cultivating Crisis: Coffee, Smallholder Vulnerability, and the Uneven Sociomaterial Consequences of the Leaf Rust Epidemic in Jamaica

Since September 2012, the Jamaican coffee industry has been grappling with the coffee leaf rust (CLR) epidemic caused by the fungal pathogen Hemileia vastatrix. The first widespread outbreak affected more than one third of coffee plants across the island, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenues for the sector. The emergence and spread of the disease have been linked to a confluence of factors ranging from changing climatic conditions to impacts from extreme weather events, improper farm management practices, and institutional and market constraints that restrict control measures. In this article, we use the case of the CLR epidemic to illustrate how its emergence and continued presence in the Jamaican Blue Mountains is inextricably tied to the wider political–economic and ecological conditions under which coffee production takes place and how H. vastatrix’s complex pathogenesis makes the disease difficult to control. Drawing on an empirical study comprising household surveys, focus groups, archival research, and interviews, we demonstrate how smallholder farmers’ ability to manage rust impacts was severely compromised by ecological pressures, resource constraints, bounded knowledge systems, and market and regulatory limitations.

Political Ecology of Shade Coffee: Perspectives from Jamaican Blue Mountain Farmers

Jamaica's Blue Mountains are heralded as one of the world's premier coffee growing regions. Previous ecological research in Jamaica has demonstrated that shade-grown coffee practices provide beneficial ecosystem services for farmers, yet most coffee farms in the Blue Mountains have very little shade. The socio-ecological factors that influence coffee cultivation choices in Jamaica have not been analysed. Using chains of explanation, the aim of this project was to unearth the political, economic and ecological drivers and constraints that inform and influence farmers' decisions for intercropping shade trees amongst their coffee plants. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on farm-sites in the three parishes of the Blue Mountains: Portland, St. Andrew, and St. Thomas. Results from this project reveal that the human-environment interactions of coffee producers are impacted by the interplay of on-farm, on-island, and global forces. This necessitates reframing the value of ecosystem services provided by shade trees into a cohesive argument that resonates with Jamaican coffee industry specialists and the specific regional socio-ecological needs of Blue Mountain coffee farmers. Priorities for change should include: encouraging communities to re-learn the benefits and applications of organic soil fertility and the values of shade trees while exposing farmers to marketing research and strategies for pursuing conservation of coffee niche markets.

“We Likkle, but We Tallawah”: Maintaining Competitive Advantage in the Crowded Specialty Coffee Market

ABSTRACTThe Jamaican coffee industry (JCI) has exhibited key characteristics of what it means to have a competitive advantage (CA) for a number of decades. However, the last 5–10 years have seen strong challenges to this CA. The author explores the deeper dynamics of these challenges using a five forces analysis as developed by Michael Porter in addition to a thematic analysis of semistructured interviews and data from various local and international coffee organizations to assess the various forces of the model. It was revealed that the unique nature of the JCI’s product led to moderate bargaining power as a supplier, which acted as an effective buffer to the high bargaining power of global coffee buyers. These findings highlighted the importance of seeking new markets and embedding symbolic attributes as part of the overarching drive to maintain viability within specialty product markets.

Sexual habitat segregation in migrant warblers along a shade gradient of Jamaican coffee farms

Abstract: Shade coffee has been shown to provide wintering habitat for migratory bird species. Canopy cover has been cited as a good indicator of habitat quality on coffee farms. Many species of sexually dimorphic migrant warblers show sexual habitat segregation on their wintering grounds, often related to habitat quality. To test if degree of habitat segregation followed a gradient of habitat quality, we sampled canopy cover and avian communities at nine different sites in coffee farms ranging from full sun to highly shaded. Proportion of all species of wintering warblers that were male was positively correlated with percent canopy cover. Species-specific male proportions of American Redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla), Black-throated Blue Warblers (S. caerulescens), and Prairie Warblers (S. discolor) showed positive correlations with canopy cover, though small sample sizes limited statistical power.
 Keywords: coffee, habitat quality, habitat segregation, migrants, Neotropics, Parulidae, shade coffee
 Resumen: Se ha demostrado que el café de sombra brinda un hábitat invernal para las especies de aves migratorias. La cobertura del dosel se ha citado como un buen indicador de la calidad del hábitat en las granjas cafetaleras. Muchas especies de paseriformes migratorios sexualmente dimórficos muestran, en las áreas de invernada, una segregación sexual en el hábitat usualmente relacionada con la calidad del mismo. Para examinar si el grado de segregación del hábitat sigue un gradiente relacionado con su calidad, muestreamos la cobertura del dosel y las comunidades de aves en nuevos sitios diferentes en granjas cafetaleras con una variación de esa cobertura desde totalmente al sol a altamente sombreada. La proporción de individuos de todas las especies de paseriformes migrantes que fueron machos estuvo correlacionada positivamente con el porcentaje de cobertura del dosel. Las proporciones especie-específica de machos de Setophaga ruticilla, S. caerulescens y S. discolor mostraron correlaciones positivas con la cobertura del dosel, a pesar de la potencia estadística limitada por los pequeños tamaños muestrales.
 Palabras clave: café, café de sombra, calidad de hábitat, migrantes, Neotrópico, Parulidae, segregación de hábitat
 Résumé: Il a été montré que les plantations de café d’ombre fournissent un habitat d’hivernage à certaines espèces d’oiseaux migrateurs. La couverture de la canopée a été reconnue comme un bon indicateur de la qualité de l’habitat dans les plantations de café. De nombreuses espèces de parulines migratrices ayant un dimorphisme sexuel présentent une ségrégation de l’habitat en fonction du sexe dans leurs aires d’hivernage, souvent liée à la qualité de l’habitat. Pour vérifier si ce degré de ségrégation suit le gradient de qualité de l’habitat, nous avons échantillonné la couverture de la canopée et les communautés d’oiseaux des plantations de café sur neuf sites différents allant du plein soleil à des situations très ombragées. La proportion de mâles de l’ensemble des espèces de parulines hivernantes était positivement corrélée au pourcentage de couverture de la canopée. La proportion de mâle, au sein de chaque espèce, était positivement corrélée à la couverture de la canopée pour la Paruline flamboyante (Setophaga ruticilla), la Paruline bleue (S. caerulescens) et la Paruline des prés (S. discolor), bien que la taille réduite des échantillons ait limité la portée statistique de l’analyse.
 Mots clés: café, café d’ombre, migrateurs, Néotropiques, Parulidae, qualité de l’habitat, ségrégation de l’habitat

Site suitability and the analytic hierarchy process: How GIS analysis can improve the competitive advantage of the Jamaican coffee industry

This paper presents a site suitability model for growing coffee in the island of Jamaica and how it can be used to assist the development of the Jamaican coffee industry as it seeks to regain the presence it once had in the specialty coffee market. Home to the Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee – one of the world's most exotic and expensive coffees, the industry has struggled in face of increased competition in the specialty coffee market and increasing costs of production. This decline in competitive advantage has forced stakeholders to seek innovative means to remain viable. This suitability model integrated the perspectives of local coffee stakeholders using the analytic hierarchy process to determine the weights for the biophysical and infrastructure criteria used in the suitability analysis. The results indicated that the most suitable locations for growing coffee in the island were in the mountainous core of central and eastern Jamaica, especially in and around the Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee region and the hills of south-central Jamaica. The results also highlighted areas with limited coffee production potential across the island. This model lays the groundwork for potential applications of the model such as its use in policy making decisions and scenario planning as the industry contemplates the possible impacts of climate change on coffee growing regions across the island. This suitability model promises to be a stepping stone in the creation of novel applications of geospatial technology in agriculture within small islands.

On the Abandonment of Coffee Plantations in Jamaica after Emancipation

Historians who have studied Jamaican coffee plantations have concluded that plantation production was insignificant after about 1850. I argue that this conclusion is based on an uncritical acceptance of the information contained in one source, a report of the House of Assembly. A critical reading of this document, in its historical context, casts doubt on the conclusion. I further show that many more plantations survived into the 1880s than has been previously recognised. These plantations, although producing a relatively small proportion of Jamaica's coffee, were central to building Jamaica's reputation as a producer of some of the world's best coffee.

Death and Burial at Marshall's Pen, a Jamaican Coffee Plantation, 1814–1839: Examining the End of Life at the End of Slavery

Archaeological studies of slave and post-emancipation sites often discuss death and burial practices, despite the fact that actual cemeteries often prove difficult to locate. This aboveground study of a singular cemetery at Marshall's Pen, a coffee plantation in Jamaica, addresses questions of end of life issues for Afro-Jamaicans both before and after the abolition of slavery. This study utilizes the documentary record, comparative research, and the material record in order to examine causes of death and mortuary practices on the island; it also explores continuities in burial practices that can be seen through to the present day.

Effects of land use on bird populations and pest control services on coffee farms

Global increases in both agriculture and biodiversity awareness raise a key question: Should cropland and biodiversity habitat be separated, or integrated in mixed land uses? Ecosystem services by wildlife make this question more complex. For example, birds benefit agriculture by preying on pest insects, but other habitat is needed to maintain the birds. Resulting land use questions include what areas and arrangements of habitat support sufficient birds to control pests, whether this pest control offsets the reduced cropland, and the comparative benefits of "land sharing" (i.e., mixed cropland and habitat) vs. "land sparing" (i.e., separate areas of intensive agriculture and habitat). Such questions are difficult to answer using field studies alone, so we use a simulation model of Jamaican coffee farms, where songbirds suppress the coffee berry borer (CBB). Simulated birds select habitat and prey in five habitat types: intact forest, trees (including forest fragments), shade coffee, sun coffee, and unsuitable habitat. The trees habitat type appears to be especially important, providing efficient foraging and roosting sites near coffee plots. Small areas of trees (but not forest alone) could support a sufficient number of birds to suppress CBB in sun coffee; the degree to which trees are dispersed within coffee had little effect. In simulations without trees, shade coffee supported sufficient birds to offset its lower yield. High areas of both trees and shade coffee reduced pest control because CBB was less often profitable prey. Because of the pest control service provided by birds, land sharing was predicted to be more beneficial than land sparing in this system.

Variation in Aggression of Black-throated Blue Warblers Wintering in Jamaica

Abstract. Variation in aggression among birds on different territories has been hypothesized to be influenced by intrinsic factors such as a bird's age, sex, or size and extrinsic factors such as density of neighbors, abundance of food, or territory size. However, little work has examined how and why aggression may vary within a bird's home range. We examined variation in aggressive behaviors of nonbreeding Black-throated Blue Warblers (Setophaga caerulescens) in Jamaican coffee farms by using experimentally simulated intrusions into home ranges. Our multivariate models confirmed that multiple variables associated with aggression included sex, home range size, proximity of intrusion to home range center, and the presence of another aggressive bird in the area. In addition, we found that birds responded more aggressively to intrusions in shade trees, where insects were more abundant, than in the understory of coffee or of small patches of remnant forest. These results suggest the birds responded to variati...

Pattern-oriented modeling of bird foraging and pest control in coffee farms

We develop a model of how land use and habitat diversity affect migratory bird populations and their ability to suppress an insect pest on Jamaican coffee farms. Bird foraging—choosing which habitat patch and prey to use as prey abundance changes over space and time—is the key process driving this system. Following the “pattern-oriented” modeling strategy, we identified nine observed patterns that characterize the real system's dynamics. The model was designed so that these patterns could potentially emerge from it. The resulting model is individual-based, has fine spatial and temporal resolutions, represents very simply the supply of the pest insect and other arthropod food in six habitat types, and includes foraging habitat selection as the only adaptive behavior of birds. Although there is an extensive heritage of bird foraging theory in ecology, most of it addresses only the individual level and is too simple for our context. We used pattern-oriented modeling to develop and test foraging theory for this across-scale problem: rules for individual bird foraging that cause the model to reproduce a variety of patterns observed at the system level. Four alternative foraging theories were contrasted by how well they caused the model to reproduce the nine characteristic patterns. Four of these patterns were clearly reproduced with the “null” theory that birds select habitat randomly. A version of classical theory in which birds stay in a patch until food is depleted to some threshold caused the model to reproduce five patterns; this theory caused lower, not higher, use of habitat experiencing an outbreak of prey insects. Assuming that birds select the nearby patch providing highest intake rate caused the model to reproduce all but one pattern, whereas assuming birds select the highest-intake patch over a large radius produced an unrealistic distribution of movement distances. The pattern reproduced under none of the theories, a negative relation between bird density and distance to trees, appears to result from a process not in the model: birds return to trees at night to roost. We conclude that a foraging model for small insectivorous birds in diverse habitat should assume birds can sense higher food supply but over short, not long, distances.

Roosting behaviour of a migratory songbird on Jamaican coffee farms: landscape composition may affect delivery of an ecosystem service

SummaryRecent evidence indicates that insectivorous birds in shade coffee farms provide economically significant ecosystem services by reducing insect pests, which should encourage cultivation practices favouring birds and other wildlife. However, the provisioning of this service may be dependent on landscape composition and movement patterns of these mobile consumers. Very little information is currently available on bird movements in coffee-dominated landscapes. We examined roosting behaviour in Black-throated Blue Warblers Dendroica caerulescens on two Jamaican coffee farms using radio telemetry in order to determine whether birds commute between nocturnal roosts and diurnal foraging ranges in coffee habitat. Nocturnal tracking revealed most birds moved outside diurnal foraging ranges on the farms to roost in forested habitat patches, sometimes up to 1 km away. Of 42 roost locations, only eight roosts were within the coffee farm perimeter: one individual in a coffee bush, and seven others in shade trees or vegetated riparian strips. Logistic regression confirmed that birds strongly selected continuous forest and individual trees over coffee for roosting. These findings reflect the ecological connectivity between coffee habitats and the adjacent landscape and raise the possibility that the provisioning of pest reduction services could be at least partly dependent on a farm’s proximity to forest patches.

The Governor and the Enslaved: An Archaeology of Colonial Modernity at Marshall’s Pen, Jamaica

The rise of modernity in Europe resulted in the redefinition of social relations between those in control of the apparatus of the state and economy on the one hand, and those who worked and lived within that apparatus on the other. This shift in the definition of the basic social unit from subject to individual citizen was fraught with tension, and resulted in vast changes in the lives of colonized people throughout the European sphere of control. The social and material manifestations of these historical processes were many; this article considers how phenomena associated with colonial modernity impacted the lives of people enslaved at Marshall’s Pen, a Jamaican coffee plantation, in the opening decades of the nineteenth century. To this end, this article examines the negotiation of the social and material realities of nineteenth-century colonialism through the spread of mass-produced goods mediated through the rise of consumerism visible through archaeologically recovered material culture, the imposition of age-grade, gendered, ethnic and racial categorizations as manifestations of a rationalized social order, the increased focus on the individual as a self-regulating member of a moralized social order, and shifting definitions of the relationships between space and social organization reflecting in changing settlement patterns of village life.

Women's Lives and labour on Radnor, a Jamaican Coffee Plantation, 1822–1826

Women's Lives and labour on Radnor, a Jamaican Coffee Plantation, 1822–1826

An Archaeology of Modernity in Colonial Jamaica

The rise of modernity in Europe resulted in the redefinition of social relations between those in control of the apparatus of the state and economy on the one hand, and those who worked and lived within that apparatus on the other. This shift in the definition of the basic social unit from subject to individual citizen was fraught with tension, and resulted in vast changes in the lives of colonized people throughout the European sphere of control. While the material manifestations of these historical processes were many, this article considers how two phenomena associated with modernity impacted the lives of people enslaved at Marshall’s Pen, a Jamaican coffee plantation, in the opening decades of the 19th century. These two considerations included the spread of mass-produced goods mediated through the rise of consumerism visible through archaeologically recovered material culture, and shifting definitions of the relationships between space and social organization reflecting in changing settlement patterns of village life.

CPEST: An expert system for the management of pests and diseases in the Jamaican coffee industry

Abstract Over the last few years, environmental concerns have led to the emergence of the integrated management of pest and pesticides (IMPP) as a new way to deal with pests and pesticides in agriculture. Although the environmental and economic benefits of IMPP are beyond doubt, its use has been somewhat limited. One reason is the sheer amount of knowledge required of such things as climate, topography, soil type of the farm, agronomic practices, crop phenology, biology and damage potential of the pests and options available for suppressing their population below the economic injury levels. Unfortunately, such knowledge typically resides within a few experts and is not easily available to farmers. In order to make this knowledge more widely available, we developed CPEST, an expert system for managing pest and diseases of coffee in a developing country. The paper describes the architecture and development of CPEST, gives examples of the interface that a farmer would use to enter information and provides an evaluation of the quality of the advice that CPEST provides.

Women's Lives and labour on Radnor, a Jamaican Coffee Plantation, 1822–1826

(2002). Women's Lives and labour on Radnor, a Jamaican Coffee Plantation, 1822–1826. Caribbean Quarterly: Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 27-40.