Within a decade of reaching the pinnacle of the success of the coffee Cultivation System in West Sumatra. Coffee production dropped dramatically and the government was unable to stem the decline.
It was also what made the colonial government revoke the Coffee Cultivation System in 1908. Kenneth R. Young describes several factors in the decline of coffee production in West Sumatra after its peak.
The first factor is that the best soil for coffee has started to diminish. The way coffee is grown in West Sumatra is by planting on large tracts of land that are suitable for growing coffee and exploiting the coffee trees for as long as possible.
According to Courperus and Ousche, coffee trees in West Sumatra still bear fruit after 30 or 40 years of age. While the average commercial crop in Java at that time only bore fruit until fifteen to twenty years old.
Need to open new farms in other areas
Clearing new land is very labor intensive and less productive for farmers. Plus, the new land clearing is done in a place that is further away from their villages than the previous land.
This adds to the difficulty in transportation for farmers. The coffee cultivation system in West Sumatra was created on the basis of minimal labor needs, just as it was before the system was introduced.
Changing the basis of the system meant making the system unworkable, causing Minangkabau people to leave their gardens out of resentment.
The second factor is the leaf disease that affects the coffee trees. In the 1870s, hemilia vestarix disease attacked Arabica coffee grown in the West Sumatra region.
The disease almost wiped out most of the coffee plantations below an altitude of one thousand meters above sea level (mdpl), for coffee plants above that altitude were not affected by the pest outbreak.
The third factor was that after 1873, the colonial government fought a long, expensive and fierce war with Aceh. Aceh’s fierce resistance was countered by the colonial government by increasing the number of troops.
Some troops were brought in from the West Sumatra region
The procurement of soldiers from the West Sumatra region had the effect of reducing the strength of the army, which was one of the coercive instruments for the people of West Sumatra in the forced coffee planting system.
The colonial government tried to tackle this problem of declining production by bringing in an experienced agricultural expert from Java, Inspector Ples. In 1875-1866, Ples provided outlines for scientifically establishing coffee production, to enable intensive cultivation.
Not understanding this mountainous land, Ples gave wrong advice that turned out to be very damaging. While Dr. Ples suggested shade trees, they actually damaged the coffee plants.
This advice is not suitable for coffee plantations that are located higher than coffee plantations in the Java area. This made farmers’ trust in scientific measures in coffee cultivation disappear and further strengthened West Sumatra farmers that traditional coffee cultivation is much more effective.
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